


This One Last Time

by Deejaymil



Series: Halcyon Mine [2]
Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Altered Mental States, Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Angst with a Happy Ending, Best Friends, Depression, Drug Abuse, F/M, Falling In Love, Friendship, Growing Up, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Non-Chronological, Non-Graphic Rape/Non-Con, Recreational Drug Use, Romance, Slow Burn, Statutory Rape, Time Skips, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-20
Updated: 2018-01-05
Packaged: 2018-09-18 20:00:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 72
Words: 139,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9400850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deejaymil/pseuds/Deejaymil
Summary: At seventeen years old, Spencer Reid was many things: high, broken, aimless, longing for another hit. "How would you start your story?" asked the faceless human next to him, his name forgotten by morning. "If you had to tell someone about your life.""Once upon a time," Spencer would have replied, after laughing, if he'd been sober and still how he'd used to be, "there was a lonely boy in a lonely quarry."But he didn't say this, because he was sure that boy was gone.As it turned out, that was wrong.





	1. Psychoactive, One

**Author's Note:**

> This is not a happy tale. There are more downs than ups in Spencer's story, we know this. This story will absolutely entail recreational drug use, the sexual abuse of a minor, vague depictions of sexual conduct by persons under the age of eighteen, and essentially a very dark skip down a very dark road. It will also be non-chronological and disorientated, because Spencer isn't the same kind of storyteller as Aaron was.
> 
> But it will also entail the light parts of that road too, because we know they're there. There's Ethan and Aaron and Elle and Jack and even Halcyon along this road, beyond all the pain. And a million stories left untold. I promise to do my utmost to depict each and every situation the characters find themselves in within this fic with realism and respect.
> 
> I figure by now absolutely everyone has gone NOPE and clicked out of this, because heck, what a list of contents (and I don't blame you if you have). But if you're still here, I hope you trust me enough to write this fic how it needs to be written, without shying away from the parts that hurt.

He only woke up to come down.

Sticky hot with cooling sweat, he rolled and the bed rolled with him. Flung an arm out to grab something, anything, whatever would stop the world from picking him up and throwing him heartlessly down.

“Woah there,” mumbled the voice attached to the arm he’d just grabbed, and he blinked and tried to piece together his brain long enough to remember the name that connected both of those things. “Grabby aren’t you, Spencer?”

“Feel sick,” he said, because his eyes were burning and his stomach was roiling and that voice was wrong wrong wrong and never getting better because he’d danced across his past and burned all the bridges behind him. He laughed. “Can you smell smoke?” He could. Ha.

He could.

“Shut up and come back,” said the voice/arm/name and Spencer crawled back onto the bed and curled against that body, faceless, nameless, he didn’t care. Last time he’d slipped into the bed of someone with a name ( _aaron_ ), look how that had ended. “Is there any more?”

He looked, he really did. Wondered, for a heartbeat, how that named person would have reacted to the smeary mess of powder and liquid spooling together on the bedside cupboard. Gave up caring about his smoky past and reached for the clickity glass that rapped against his nails. His head hurt. His brain hurt with it. Too much thinking. Fingers touched his and he pushed it away and laid back on the bed.

 _Lazy_ , he thought, and the thought became a mouth kissing up his chest and his throat. “Lazy,” the voice said, and he hummed as those fingers found his arm. “I’ll do it for you, then.” _Shssshhh_ said the strap as the fingers tightened it, and he hummed again as the fingers became a needle that slipped in up up up in a sharp-hot bite into his vein.

“How would you start your story?” the voice said suddenly, as Spencer dropped back into the pooling nothing of sleep. “If you had to tell someone about your life?” The voice became a sucking bite of air as the needle fingers found it too. The bed dipped, thumped, groaned, as a body sprawled languidly next to him and tucked a nose against his shoulder. Breath against his skin. A heartbeat skittering on his arm. He wriggled away and wanted it to stop.

Thought again about the question. Didn’t answer. What a question. Stupid question.

Who was left to tell?

But if he had been sober and still who he’d used to be, he’d have said this:

_Once upon a time, there was a lonely boy in a lonely quarry…_


	2. Alcyone – June, 1992

The Boy was oddly persistent. Spencer didn’t _trust_ persistent. Persistent meant that he’d wait extra-long for Spencer to come out of the library after school or that they’d chase him twice as far without giving up…

Persistent ended up being a race between their determination and Spencer’s stamina, and he was confident enough he could win this one.

But this boy…

He didn’t do anything that boys usually did. He didn’t shout or kick or punch or taunt. Spencer finishing knotting together what would be the north wall of Rhosgobel, if he ever got it finished, and eyed the corner of the clearing where The Boy sat reading a book. Just… reading. He’d paused once, his finger stuck on the page as he stared off dreamily into the distance with a lost kind of expression on his face, and Spencer had snuck a look at the cover. It was the same as yesterday.

_Goosebumps_ the book declared, a thin paperback grubby from countless hands. He’d gone back to the camp the night before and asked Alex about it.

“They’re a horror series of books, Spencer,” Alex said, smiling. “You should read them.”

“I don’t think they look like something I’d be into,” Spencer said uncertainly, because the ridged cover with the red-tint and the camera splashed across it wasn’t anything like the leather-bound books at home. “They look like they’re for kids.”

And Alex had looked at him oddly. “You _are_ a kid,” he said, and that night Spencer had found five of them piled on his pillow. They’d taken him less than an hour to read. Another two hours to analyse. Just _why_ did the boy seem so engrossed in them? They were no Lord of the Rings, that was for sure…

But they _were_ fun. Spencer wiggled on the spot, eyeing an ant as it tracked across his shoe. _Two segmented waist,_ he noted. _Carpenter ant._ That done, he looked back at The Boy. He could do it. He could stand up brush the dust from his trousers and say, “I like that book. I’ve never really read horror before,” —a lie, if Poe and Shelley counted as horror in this odd boy’s eyes— “but I think I’d like to read more like that. Can you recommend any more?”

But even in his head, it felt stilted and awkward.

He could say, “Hot today,” like his dad did when he was talking to someone at the supermarket. Or maybe he could tell the boy that Crematogaster Ants have a two segment waist and a heart shaped abdomen.

“I met a boy today,” Spencer lied to Alex that night. Really, he’d met The Boy—he just seemed like the kind of boy that needed capitalization, like his dark eyes and piercing gaze screamed _I require a proper noun_ —the week before, when the teenagers had tried to hurt him. But there was a still healing cut on his chin that would have caused questions if he’d told Alex he’d met The Boy that day.

“Oh?” Alex asked, going over the four essays Spencer had already written this holiday. Aide to the four of them in Spencer’s dorm, he seemed to favour Spencer himself… the others didn’t seem to mind. It was a little overbearing though, having the sudden attention of the twenty-two-year-old PhD student. He was impressively smart, and Spencer never felt quite like he could live up to expectations.

Besides, Dad said Alex was arrogant. Spencer didn’t really see that, but Dad was usually right. Right?

“I don’t know his name,” Spencer added, knowing this was weird. “He reads.”

“Most people read,” Alex said with a snort, handing the essays back. “Write your next one about Star Trek. Something fun. We’re supposed to be having fun, and ants aren’t fun, kid. Did you talk to him?”

Spencer shook his head and picked at his pyjamas. How was he supposed to explain the weird sort of agreement they seemed to have wordlessly come to? Spencer built Rhosgobel, silently, and The Boy… did whatever he was doing. Reading, mostly. Sometimes staring. Maybe watching, but Spencer always made sure their gazes didn’t meet.

“Well,” Alex said slowly. “Have you tried saying ‘Hi, my name’s Spencer’?”

Another head shake. Was it really that simple?

“Try it,” Alex said, leaving him in the dorm. The other boys were asleep.

Spencer laid awake and planned. _Hi, my name is Spencer. Hi, I read books too. Hi, I didn’t mean we **couldn’t** be friends when I said we **weren’t**_ _friends. I’ve never had a friend. Have you?_

He wasn’t very good at this.

“Hi,” he said softly. “My name is Spencer. Want to build Rhosgobel?”

“Shut up, Spencer,” mumbled one of his roommates. “M’sleeping.”

Maybe that would work. If Rhosgobel was as magic as he suspected, it had to.

Now, if only he was brave enough to actually say it…


	3. Alcyone – July, 1992

“It’s gonna have bugs,” said Aaron, squinting at the pile of tangled grasses and rubbish where they could _just_ see a broken-down gate sticking out from underneath. “Spiders, probably. Or snakes. What kinds of snakes could it have?”

He said this with a cautious kind of _still not sure you’re actually as smart as you say you are_ , and Spencer hesitated before answering. Was this a trap? A ‘show off the weird brainy kid and then tease him for it’ question? Was Aaron compiling a mental checklist of ‘times Spencer was obnoxious about his intelligence’?

Should he lie and say ‘I don’t know?’

“Spence?” Aaron asked, rubbing the back of his grimy hand across his face and leaving a streak of dirt along his nose and cheek. They were grossly dirty, the both of them, having been working on getting supplies for Rhosgobel the whole sticky-hot day. Spencer picked at sandy patches of white on his polo and considered what he knew.

Maybe it was a trap.

But maybe it wasn’t.

He called him _Spence_. A nickname. Spencer had never had a nickname. It was… nice.

“Northern copperheads are the only venomous snake we’re likely to encounter,” he said finally. “But Northern Black Racers and Northern Scarletsnakes are also possibilities. As well as—” He paused. The list was somewhat extensive, but Aaron was grinning.

“Cool,” he said, and sounded like he meant it, trying to run his fingers through his hair as though to ruffle the silky straight strands into disarray. It didn’t work. His hair was clipped short, refusing to disobey and stand upright even when clumpy with sweat. Spencer was a little envious. “Snakes would be awesome to see. What if like, we see a _king_ snake.”

“A… what?” Spencer asked, as Aaron kicked the rubbish pile and jumped back in an attempt to flush out wayward critters.

“Like, a snake that got all tangled up with other snakes and now it has a billion heads,” Aaron replied excitedly, delving into the rubbish. Cans and bottles scattered as he tugged them easily free from the knots of overgrown grass. Spencer inched forward, picking out any that looked like they wouldn’t make him look weak in comparison. “Help me with this. It’s like, a _mega_ snake. That would be so badass. We could get pictures and be in National Geographic for discovering it.”

“I don’t think those are real,” Spencer disagreed, making a mental note to look it up when he got back to camp that night. Crouching, he examined the tire that Aaron was trying to shift before sliding his fingers reluctantly under the rim. On the back of his neck, he could feel the hairs standing on end as he vividly imagined the touch of a flickering tongue against his fingertips, or the many-legged scuttle of eight legs up his wrist. “I don’t know if we can move this…”

Aaron braced with his legs and _shoved_ against the tire, almost going flying as it tore free from its sunken home and skidded from the pile. Stumbling, Aaron almost toppled after it, until Spencer grabbed his arm and yanked him back.

Bugs scuttled free. Aaron squeaked, scampering off the pile. Spencer quickly took stock, saw no vivid warning colours among the critters around his shoes, and quietly examined them.

“They’re not venomous,” he reassured the other boy, “but look.” A lizard slunk out from the pile, staring after his tire home with an indignant flick of his tongue. “I think we made him mad.”  

“Sorry, Mr. Lizard,” Aaron called after him as he skittered away. “What is he?”

“Possibly a she,” Spencer said, despite not actually knowing how to sex lizards by sight. “And a six-lined racerunner.” He didn’t hesitate this time. Maybe… just maybe… Aaron actually _wanted_ to know this stuff.

With a loud _crunch_ of several cans being suddenly unearthed and compressed under the gate, Aaron worked it free. His pale blue shirt was almost brown now, sticking to his body with sweat, and Spencer thought longingly of a shower. “Right,” Aaron said cheerfully, dragging the gate onto bare land and knocking snails off with his shoe. “Now to get it back. You get that side, otherwise we’re gonna lose all the paint on the gravel.”

“Okay.” Obediently, Spencer checked for spiders and then wrapped his hands around the wood, lifting it with a grunt and following behind Aaron as they trudged from the trash heap up the hill to where the quarry gates stood open. The gate smelled strongly of earth, which was at least a _clean_ smell, unlike the distinct scent of two sweaty almost-adolescents.

Conversation faltered. This new thing between them was tentative, barely broken by Aaron’s brash “Need a hand?” two days before, and Spencer was terrified of messing up and ruining it before it had a chance to cement. Aaron kept glancing back at him, dark eyes curious and his mouth twisted like he was just stopping himself from saying something.

“Uh,” Aaron said finally, as they reached the narrow crawl-way into Rhosgobel and began to carefully work the gate through. “I went to the library the other day.”

Spencer paused. Not noticing he’d stopped, Aaron yanked on the gate and vanished into the bushes with a yelp as they both went flying back. Scuttling through, Spencer winced as the other boy wiggled out from under the gate, grinning.

“Sorry,” Spencer mumbled. Aaron shrugged and scooted on his knees over to his backpack, rifling through. “Why’d you go to the library?”

_Stupid question_ , he thought with a wince. Why _else_ would someone go to a library?

“To get this,” Aaron said quietly, holding up…

Oh.

“Did you get that because of me?” Spencer asked, reaching for the copy of Lord of the Rings the other boy held. “Because… because I like it?” He could feel a smile lurking, some bubble of weird-excited happiness growing in his chest and goading him forward. Their fingers brushed as he took the book, and his hand was shaking.

Aaron nodded. “We’ll if we’re gonna be friends, we should like the same things,” he announced, and flopped down with a huff. “I’m tired. Can you show me any bits about Rhosgobel? We can finish up tomorrow.”

“Well, Rhosgobel isn’t actually directly mentioned,” Spencer said excitedly, dropping to his knees and shuffling closer. The book fell open easily in his hands, pages rustling as he turned to the Council of Elrond and tapped a finger against the tight text. Aaron leaned closer, expression…

Fascinated. He was genuinely fascinated.

“But here… Radagast is. ‘ _Radagast is, of course, a worthy Wizard, a master of shapes and changes of hue; and he has much lore of herbs and beasts, and birds are especially his friends.’_ ”

“Cool,” breathed Aaron, and Spencer thought maybe _this_ was what Alex was talking about when he said to have fun.


	4. Alcyone – August, 1992

On the last hour of their last day, Spencer considered that he’d maybe made a friend.

He’d never had a friend before. He wasn’t quite sure how to verbalize how it made him feel. He sat in Rhosgobel—finished now, and more amazing than Spencer could possibly have imagined when he’d begun, and stared at the beetle still marching in circles around their enclosed little world. There was so much he _wanted_ to say, stealing glances at the strange, intense, dark-haired boy who’d trooped into his life.

_I’ve never not been alone,_ he thought of saying, but was that true? Really? He’d had his parents. Always, his mom…

_I’m scared you’ll be gone when I come back,_ was another thing he couldn’t say because it bared way too much of himself.

_I’m never going to forget this,_ was something he thought he actually might be able to say, if he remembered how to talk around the anxiety in his throat. Never forget the days of building, the nights of planning, the summer stretching on endlessly with no regard for the ceaseless passage of time…

Never forget Aaron. Even if they never had this again.

“Why do you look so miserable?” Aaron asked suddenly, sitting upright with a twig in his mouth and shuffling over on his butt. “Nine months isn’t so long.”

“It’s almost ten percent of my life to this point,” Spencer protested, without marking it to the decimal point _(9.72%)_ , “that’s ages! And…” He trailed off, coughed, swallowed whatever he’d been about to say.

Aaron watched him. There was something in his face, some expression that made Spencer uncomfortable. It reminded him of the bullies at school, but… nicer. Some worried kind of _knowing_. Something that made his gut ache. He wondered if he’d see the same expression if he looked in the mirror. “What if we say something?” Aaron said, ignoring the drooping sun and their time together coming to an end. “To mark the occasion?”

Spencer thought about that. Like a contract. Or a… vow. Of something. Of existence.

Yeah. If they vowed, Aaron would _have_ to come back.

And he knew just what to say.

It was the bravest thing he’d ever done, he thought, to hold out his hand. Aaron took it, and both their palms were sweaty. Fingers slipping together, they kneeled in the dust with the sun setting and the beetle continuing his trek over Aaron’s left shoe.

“And this place is forever known as Rhosgobel and the armies of Fear won’t come here,” Spencer said determinedly, squeezing tight. Aaron squeezed back. “On this date of August 1992, we call this place ours forevermore.”

Aaron laughed, standing with a leap and a skitter of rocks, and he _shouted_ , “And the armies of Fear, stay the hell away!”, whooping, jumping, and Spencer stared. “Come on, Spence! You gotta mark the occasion!” With wild exuberance, he moved. Complete abandon.

Spencer didn’t know how. He stood nervously, staring at his grinning friend.

“Uh,” he tried, and shrugged. “Stay the hell away?”

Aaron rolled his eyes and stepped closer, reaching out his dirty hand. “I’ll show you,” he said with a snort, and Spencer went to take it and instead felt himself being yanked cruelly awake with a yelped, _no, don’t_ —

( _i don’t want to wake yet)_

_(don’t go)_


	5. Psychoactive, Two

He woke to shouting. Angry and rough and some worried part of him kept his eyes shut and his body lax until it worked out who the angry was. His arm ached. Someone had grabbed him. His head ached too. That was probably his fault.

And out of the anger, eventually, words. Spencer wiggled down, recognised the clawing, grating feeling of withdrawal fighting with the numbness in his brain, and determined to feel nothing for the next however many years it took for it all to stop.

Words. Hazy. They limped from his dream into this waking moment. Spencer wanted to remember them. The better words, not the shouty ones. The ones that followed _I’ll show you_. The ones that slipped from the mouth of the named.

_Get the fuck out. No, seriously, I’ll call the cops._

_He’s fifteen. You think they’ll listen to him over me?_

_Out. Or I’ll fucking—_

_Go away, Ethan,_ Spencer tried to say, because the man was relentless in his goal to not let Spencer shatter himself on any willing body he could get to see past his age or the marks on his arms. _Stop bothering._ But sleep stole the words, despite the shouting, and he drifted…

Hands again on his front. Shaking, slow-motion, and Spencer tried to crack open his eyelids and giggled instead, because Aaron had shaken him awake once. Wait.

_Aaron_ …

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” someone snarled, deep voice close, and a hand wrapped around his throat. Squeezed. Spencer jerked, flung himself back, cracked his head on the bedside cupboard and hit the floor with a whine that was choked, wet, breathless, horror thrumming through his everything. And he stared, huddled and broken and still half-fucked up, at the man standing by his bed with his musician hands held high.

“Hey,” said Ethan gently, with a sour glance at the closed door of Spence’s dorm. “It’s me, kid. I was just checking your pulse, I barely touched you kid. Whatever you’re thinking, snap out of it. Jesus fuck, Spence, why do you keep doing this?”

Spence shuddered. Rubbed his throat and refused to think any more on that. Slid to his knees. Closed his eyes and didn’t answer, letting it slip, slip slip…

_Hey._

_Hey!_

**_Hey!_ **

Eyes open again, he stared into the two green ones staring right back. Angry, mostly, but also sad. And Spencer hated him in that moment. Hated how he kept doing this.

“What?” he snapped, uncurling like he hadn’t just nodded out naked on his bedroom floor. And, just because he knew it made the irritable RA uncomfortable, he sprawled out blatantly and cocked his chin up in a challenge. “Why are you here? Go away.”

Ethan was always cruel, always angry, except when Spencer was high. Another thing to hate him for. When Spencer _needed_ that anger, it was never there. Just quiet acceptance, considerate hands. Spencer bunched his fists against the gritty carpet and did nothing but simmer for a moment, his veins sharp-hot and his brain sluggish.

“Are you awake now?” Ethan asked, staring down at him and focusing very intently on Spencer’s eyes and not his body or his marred arms. Another petty thing. Like he was looking at who Spencer _was_ instead of what he could offer him… disgruntled at the idea of that, Spencer drew his knees up and tapped his fingers repetitively against his calf, fighting the itchy, skin-biting feeling to dig at his heel with one bitten-down nail. “You have a test in three hours,” the man continued, and finally broke eye-contact to stare at the paraphernalia on the bedside cupboard. “And you’re not even trying to hide this bullshit anymore.”

“Where’s my friend?” Spencer asked instead of caring about any of that.

Ethan turned his gaze back, green and weary and nothing like the other person, nothing at all. Light where there should be dark, red-hot where it should be cool. Maybe that was why Spencer could stomach the hand he put down to him, even let himself be pulled upright. He couldn’t have if the gaze was dark and kind. “Like you’d fucking know,” Ethan spat, kicking at a pile of clothes until his shoe unearthed a towel. Spencer winced at the truth there. Sobering up, so Ethan didn’t need to be nice anymore. No more fear he’d have to carry the guilt of singeing the feelings of the resident genius he’d been burdened with right before finding him OD’d on something awful. “Towel. Clothes. Cover yourself up. Don’t make me shower you, shitheel.”

“Fuck you,” Spencer muttered, but gathered his things, tugged on some pants, and followed the RA placidly down the hall to the showers. “Fuck you…”

But despite it all, Ethan always stayed.

 

* * *

 

Spencer trudged to the midterm hall under the weight of the sun and his head and everything else, and almost wanted to die. There wasn’t a single sensation that was good or optimistic about this. His throat burned, his stomach lurched, and his skin was on _fire_.

“You’re withdrawing, not sick,” Ethan said when Spencer whined. Spencer wondered how he’d gotten so cruel. He wasn’t even _trying_ to help. “Stop scratching. Did you study?”

No.

“Yes,” Spencer lied, and picked at a scab on his wrist. He paused to catch his breath under the shade of a tree and watched a beetle march across the roots. It was familiar. He’d seen one of those before, on the corner of a battered fort.

“What type of bug is that?” Ethan asked, veering in. No real interest in his voice. Just the knowledge he was trying to keep Spencer focused. Fuck him. What did he care?

“Why do you care?” Spencer hissed, because his mouth didn’t filter thoughts from his brain all that well anymore and Ethan tended to get the worst of that. Sharp-edged, cruel-tipped, it didn’t seem possible to Spencer that there was anything kind about himself anymore. Nothing salvageable. He’d taken the boy who’d known that beetle’s name and skewered him on the end of a hypodermic filled with forgetting.

Good.

“I don’t know.” Ethan’s reply was blunt. No compassion. Still more than Spencer deserved. And then even more: “When you’re done, text me.”

_Why,_ Spencer thought of asking, but he couldn’t think to care. Used to the silence, Ethan continued: “We’ll get something to eat. When did you eat last?”

Yesterday. Monday. What was today?

“I’ll be sick if I eat,” was what Spencer said instead. His wrist was bleeding now. He rubbed it on his pants and tugged his sweater sleeve back down over it, sweltering in the heat.

“Whose fault is that?”

But Ethan looked at him as he said it, his long hair framing a pale face with shadowed eyes, and Spencer couldn’t help but feel a spark of _something_. Maybe guilt. Regret. Some obligation to the man who’d dragged him countless times out of a pool of his own vomit, covered his ass from the college, did all of this with no damn reason…

“Alright,” said Spencer, and figured maybe even if he couldn’t be human again, he could at least put some kind of facsimile up of it. “I’ll text you.”

They made it. Thirty minutes to spare. Ethan shoved the textbook at him, told him to read it, and walked away without a goodbye. Spencer, did. Twice for good measure. And there were no numbers saved in his phone—no point, really—but he knew Ethan’s by rote and he intended to use it. To say _I’m finished, aced it,_ or, _thanks for getting me here_ or _I’m passing because you haven’t given up on me_ , but instead he turned it back on after the midterm and found one unread message splashed across the screen.

**+1 TXT NMBR UNKNWN**

**BORED 2NITE?  I MISS U BBY**

And he was stupid always, cruel sometimes, so he sent back:

**YES.**

After all, what did he have to lose?


	6. Alcyone – June, 1993

“I’m not going to let go.”

Steady, warm hands covered his as they trembled on the handlebars. Spencer shivered with fear, his feet firmly planted on either side of the bike. He felt small, awkward. Terrified. His shoes slipped on the pedals when he tried to mount it properly, the seat slightly too high. On his head, the helmet slithered forward.

Aaron laughed. “Scoot,” he demanded, and wiggled the seat down as Spencer craned around to watch him work. “You’re so short, kid.”

“I’m the same age as you,” Spencer replied, scowling, because he was _sure_ he was. Not absolutely sure, but sure enough to approximate. “You’re just… leggy.”

“Leggy,” Aaron repeated with a snort, now reaching up to Spencer’s chin. Spencer cocked his jaw out, holding his breath as his friend readjusted the straps of the helmet tightly. “Good words, genius. There. Safe as houses.”

“Houses aren’t so safe.” Spencer sat back on the seat and lifted one foot to the pedal, eyeing the narrow tire warily. It just didn’t look like it should work. Too much rested on his, frankly inadequate, sense of balance. “There are electrical fires, home invasions, white ants…”

“I can promise you, you’re safe from white ants.” The hands were back and Aaron knocked the kick-stand with his sneaker. Suddenly, the only things holding Spence upright was one unsteady leg and Aaron himself. “And I’m not going to let go.”

The pain of the memory was immediate and Spencer knew Aaron had seen it. Too late to hide it, the sharp memory of a packed bag and a door swinging shut behind his dad as he walked out the door.

“I trust you,” Spencer managed, and lifted that one foot up and onto the pedal. “Okay. Just don’t—”


	7. Psychoactive, Three

“Let go,” Spencer teased her, leaning back comfortably into the sticky booth. The club was warm, loud, far too alive. But this corner was quiet. A quiet corner he’d torn out of the world where he could hide away and be someone else. Spencer Reid hated clubs and sticky booths and the writhing mass of bodies pressed together on the dance floor. Whoever he was right now, he _liked_ this stuff. And he liked the sugary drink she was taunting him with. Liked it enough, anyway, with a bitter aftertaste coating his throat and tongue and fizzing into his bloodstream. “Come on. Tease.”

“Mm, I am,” she replied, and he knew her name. Was sure he knew her name. Had known her long enough that he should… he blinked and tried to parse through his memories, startled to find them foggy and fractured. That was concerning. Attention shifting away from her for a heartbeat, he rubbed his eyes and considered that maybe he needed to be this other person _less_.

The idea was chilling.

“Oi. Where’d you go, baby?” she asked, and before he could answer there was a mouth on his, a hand on his heart, and then glass replaced the lips and he obediently opened his to let her tip the vodka-bite of the drink in.

“Right here,” he muttered after swallowing, and closed his eyes again. Maybe he could be both. “Did you know depressed rats isolate themselves from other rats? MRI scans show that—”

“Are you saying you’re a depressed rat?” she asked with a kinked up eyebrow and a wary twist to her mouth that set the hairs on his arms standing on end. Something was wrong about that smile. And he shouldn’t trust this woman, she’d taken advantage of that before. Cheap coke, but she’d cut it if she thought he was too out of it to notice… “How drunk are you?”

“Not at all,” he snapped, and slipped his hand into his pocket to run his thumb over the corner of his wallet. Inside, he catalogued: bank card, cash, fake ID, bus stub, three unused postage stamps… “It’s interesting. Facts are interesting. Learning is—”

“Hardly relevant,” she replied dismissively, and slipped away. To cover his disconcert, he drained the glass she’d left behind and let his phone slide from his pocket to his hand. The screen was grubby. He had messages on there, missed calls. He squinted. Ethan. Irrelevant.

And he blinked, spun a little, and she was back with another tray of drinks. And that same smile.

Despite that smile, he took the glass she offered him. “You need to relax,” she said, and he shuddered. “You’re always so uptight when you’re like this. What’s the problem?”

Everything. His sneaking suspicion that he couldn’t even pretend to be functioning anymore. Ethan’s refusal to trust him, and just how much Spencer had betrayed that withdrawn trust in the past. The growing pile of unanswered letters from his mom shoved into the bottom drawer of his desk.

“I can’t do this,” he hissed, opening his phone up. This was a crossroads. In another universe, if he subscribed to the multiverse theory—and it was always a distinct scientific possibility, he was sure—he’d gone out for dinner with Ethan tonight, gone home sober and sensible, maybe re-evaluated the pursuit of self-destruction. And he typed out _I’m at the Mercy. Come get me?_ Erased it and replaced it with _I can do better_. Erased that and replaced it with _sorry_.

“You need a hit,” she said distantly. Another shudder. That was the last thing he needed. He erased the text again. He ran his tongue over his teeth, tasting the alcoholic pink and tasting… “I hate it when you’re like this.”

She hated him thinking. Rathered it when he was empty and craving and willing to fuck her for an eightball.

_Come get me,_ he wrote hazily and tapped in a number from memory. A hand covered his phone and drew it away; he didn’t know if he’d hit send.

“Freebie,” she continued, and he looked down at his glass and fancied he could see the fine remnants of the powder dissolving in the dregs. He blocked her out with a rush of anger that was giddying. His hand hummed under hers and he yanked it away, staring at the screen through burning eyes.

**+1 TXT NMBR UNKNWN**

**WHERE?**

“Lost,” he muttered, not angry anymore but tired, and let his head thump down onto the surface of the booth as the drug kicked in and left him floating. “Bye, me.”

“Bye, you,” she agreed, and shoved him back to slip onto his lap, her hands already fumbling with his belt.

_“We’re not statistics, Spencer,” his dad snapped, right before he walked away._

_“I’m not going to let go,” Aaron promised, but then he changed his mind and said, “You’ve got the hang of it, go!”_

_And both times, Spencer fell. Both times, someone caught him. Mom, the first. “We’re just fine on our own, my boy,” she’d promised him, and they were. Until he left._

_Aaron, the second. “Guess we’re gonna learn to swim after all,” he whooped after dragging Spencer out of the lake and tugging his shirt off. And Spencer learned. Learned to swim, and learned to note the patchwork of old and new bruising across his friend’s back and ribs._

“Right here,” he recited, and tapped his fingers across the belly in front of him. The bare belly, trailing his fingers up to the stark line of ribs. “And here, all the way across. Purpling. A glancing blow, blunt-force-trauma, within two days of being struck.”

“The hell are you on about?”

And he reached around and continued the pattern on her back, shifting with her body as she gasped. Silence around them, where were they? Not the club anymore. He’d memorised the bruises, that memory of the realization of cruelty. Here and here and here and here and

_“What do I do if someone I know is being hurt?” he asked his mom, curling in the bed with her. It was a bad day for her. Bad day for him. But the patterns bothered him._

_“Tell me,” Diana had said, oddly clear for a heartbeat, and then, “but not them. They’ll take you away. I’d never hurt you.”_

_But he didn’t tell. Not yet. He waited._

_He’d regret that._

“I didn’t tell,” he told a duck seriously. The duck quacked and swam away. Spencer watched the water ripple behind the waterfowl before pulling his shirt off and wading in after it. “Hey. I’m not done talking. You _never_ listen.”

_“No one is listening! I want to go back,” he cried, sniffling into his knees. Around him, the other kids were trying not to look at him, too used to random bursts of tears from others to react to it emphatically. “I don’t want to go home.”_

_Alex handed him a tissue. “There’s always next year,” he said firmly. “Summer ends, Spence. But it always comes back in the end.”_

“What are you doing?”

Spencer craned his head back and blinked at Ethan. “Looking at the ducks,” he said sensibly, and gagged a little. The movement felt gross. Ethan looked around and Spencer sat up, shaking water from his eyes and realizing he was laying, face-down, in the centre of a wide walk-on fountain. People stared, mostly couples drunkenly wandering along the shoreline. “Oh. The ducks are gone.”

“Whatever I did in a past life to deserve this, it was shit,” Ethan responded with a sigh. “Get up.”

They looked at each other. “I can’t,” Spencer admitted eventually, and tapped at his phone, sitting in the fountain. Neatly covered by the waterline. “Oops. How did you find me?”

“Tracking microchip in your arm.” Ethan said this deadpan enough that Spencer looked down at his arm and squinted. “What are you on tonight? Gonna puke on me if I pick you up?”

“I don’t know,” Spencer said, and then to stave off the anger he knew was coming, quickly added, “She spiked my drink.” And then, because he saw the revulsion and fury passing over the man’s face, added again, “but I saw her do it. I could have stopped her. I didn’t. Also, I will probably throw up on you. Maybe you should leave me here. Everyone leaves me here.”

“Here in particular? Odd spot. I’d at least put you on a park bench somewhere. Or a library.”

Spencer didn’t answer, just dropped his head back into the water and blew a sad stream of bubbles. Then he thought of all the water-borne bacteria he was probably inhaling and sat up quickly, spluttering. A hand steadied him as he rocked back.

“You remembered the germs, huh? Right. Upsy-daisy.”

“Upsy—ahh!” Spencer yelped, suddenly lifted and thrown fireman-style over a broad shoulder. “Oh no, I’m wet, you’re wet, this is terrible and…”

“Shut up and sober up.” Ethan strode through the fountain, nodding to a couple of college students who sniggered back. “I waited for you to text.”

“You knew I wouldn’t. I’m irresponsible. And untrustworthy. Reckless. Am I supposed to be shutted up? Sobering up is an involuntary bodily process I have no control over—”

Nausea struck. Thick and fast and he felt it bubble up his gut unstoppably, tried to choke out a warning, but failed. And puked.

On Ethan.

Fuck.

Ethan, as Spencer tried to shrink down in his misery, just sighed, swapped him to the non-soiled shoulder, and kept walking steadily through to the parking lot. “Thanks,” he said. “There was a distinct lack of me being spewed on tonight. I was starting to miss it.”

“Sorry,” mumbled Spencer, and closed his eyes. “I suck…”

“Yeah. You really do.”

He woke once in the backseat, belted in and with a used fast food paper bag on his lap.

He woke again staggering up a staircase with a hand on his arm.

He woke again, properly, with his arms around Ethan’s neck and a familiar kind of smile pasted on his face. A bed loomed behind them. “Join me,” he purred, and mouthed at the throat offered to him. Rocked his hips and moaned prettily, just how they liked it. Ethan smelled nice. Clean. Not puked on. And Spencer could _thank_ him. “Eth—”

“Fuck off!” Shoved down by Ethan’s rough hands, Spencer hit the bed with a gasp. “Stop it! _Fuck!_ ” Throwing a pillow at him, Ethan whirled away and left Spencer wondering what was so wrong with him that he had to be like this. And he kept wondering until he slept again, hearing someone whispering in his dreams. At least he thought he was sleeping.

_“Stop crying, Spencer. Who is Aaron?”_

_“Why aren’t you helping me?”_

_“The fuck do you think I’ve been doing? Spence. Look at me. Who is Aaron?”_

_“I just want to stop. Make it stop. Help me **stop**.”_

_“Jesus, kid… you’re so fucked up. Someone fucked you up bad…”_

He woke one last time, sobering up in a single bed with Ethan reading a book at his desk. In a clean shirt, his hair damp and tied back. Spencer blinked and stared, for a second rattled by the sharp gaze being levelled at him. “Welcome to the world of bad trips,” said Ethan. “You okay?” He looked tired. Miserable.

He looked hurt.

“No,” Spencer said truthfully, and knew he had to do better.


	8. Alcyone – July, 1993

The heat this year was oppressive, and they hid from it in the cool air of Manassas’s public library. Aaron, having discovered just how fast Spencer read, was piling books in front of him gleefully. For anyone else, he’d have felt like a trick pony on stage. Somehow, for Aaron, being himself was _easy_.

“Read this one and this one,” Aaron demanded, sliding them both across the table. “They’re _awesome_ fun.”

Spencer did. And they were, but as soon as he was done, there were more books in front of him. None of them were Lord of the Rings, but it was fun anyway.

“Let me pick some,” he said after quickly detailing the plot of one of the proffered books. Aaron nodded, happily trotting after him as Spencer led him invariably towards the thick-bound fantasy section. There, he found his favourite selections, paging easily to the best passages and reading them aloud to his rapt friend.

He looked up once and saw the librarian watching them, her eyes on Aaron and a smile teasing. Shoving Dune at Aaron, he muttered something about the bathroom and slipped away, leaving the boy bowed over the book with his finger marking his place as he read slowly and his lips shaped the difficult words. Spencer had been around adults enough in his life that he knew the look of someone who had something to say. He also knew that they _never_ said this stuff around kids.

But he was sneaky. He waved as he went into the bathroom, smiling widely, and then ducked back out and crouched by the service desk. The library was dead at this hour, everything hushed, and he could hear snippets of conversation through the returns slot. Fragments that only made sense when he added them to the context of the patterns on his friend’s back, the quiet darkness to his eyes, the way he only ever lost his cool if he thought he was going to be late home...

“…the Hotchner boy…yeah, his brother. Didn’t know he had friends.”

“Didn’t know he was allowed out. Gary is a real…”

“…shh, don’t say that. It’s his dad.”

“He’s not _my_ dad, I can say what I want. Nothing wrong with a cuff here and there, but _that—”_

“What are you doing?” Spencer turned to find Aaron peered around the corner at him, on his knees with his eyebrows risen. “Why are we sneaking?”

Spencer grinned sheepishly. “Eavesdropping,” he admitted, pressing a finger to his mouth. “But they’re being _boring_. How’d you like the book?”

“Not much,” Aaron said, leaning back against the counter with a _thump._ The rumble of voices behind them ceased. “It’s hard to read and _dull_.”

“I’ll read it to you,” Spencer said after a beat. “That’ll make it more fun.”

Aaron studied him, his shirt pulling tight over his shoulders as he leaned forward. “Alright,” he replied with a shy grin. “You really like this stuff, don’t you? Why?”

That was a big question. A _really_ big question. He might have well have asked why Spencer liked breathing or walking or having a functional circulatory system. He just _did_. It was integral to being him, and always would be.

But also…

“You can come back and they’re still there,” he said bravely, touching on the misery that lingered between them. The memory of the lake and his dad and the things they’d said.

“I can see the appeal,” Aaron said eventually, shuffling closer. “Wanna head back to Rhosgobel?” His eyes flickered upwards. “Less… ears.”

Spencer laughed. After all, _they_ weren’t the eavesdroppers here. “Okay,” he whispered anyway, and held up his fingers. “Three… two… _one!_ ” Together, they rocketed up and out the front door of the library with twin shouts, sprinting up the street and laughing at the startled exclamations around them. Spencer glanced back, saw people peering at them and frowning. “We’re spotted!” he cried, leaping the curb and running awkwardly down the verge and into a parkway. Aaron followed at a backwards trot, watching the people watching them.

“Come on, fly!” he yelled and leapt after. “Or they’ll catch us!”

And just like that, they were two wizards running across Middle Earth, chased by the Armies of Fear. Aaron’s dad and Spencer’s genetics and loneliness and maybe they were doomed to fail—but it didn’t feel like it today. They ran towards their Sanctuary, despite the heat around them. Aaron got there first, of course he did. Spencer was slower, weaker… _less_.

“I suck,” he wheezed, crawling into the fort and flopping onto his stomach with a gasp, trying to catch his breath.

“Nah,” said Aaron, sprawling back onto the fence and pouring water over his face from a bottle. “You just need practise.”

“But you’re so much better than me at it…”

“Yeah. And I don’t call myself stupid because you read a bazillion books a minute, do I? Not much anyway.”

Spencer blinked. “You’re not stupid,” he protested, because he refused to let _anyone_ put his friend down, not even Aaron himself. “Gandalf is the least stupid.”

“And you don’t suck. So there. Am I Gandalf? I’m not very good in white. Mom says I’m a mess.”

Spencer bit at his lip, staring at the roof. “Because that makes me Radagast,” he said, feeling a grin sneaking onto his face. “Gandalf is the one who gets in all kinds of trouble for being too brave and Radagast has to send help to him to save his life. So that means I get to save _you_ for once.”

Aaron snorted. “Yeah, that makes sense. Like you’d ever leave your books long enough to get into trouble, kid.”

Something brushed his shoulder, some rough pressure.

Time to wake up. Spencer looked around, swallowed hard, and opened—


	9. Psychoactive, Four

—his eyes.

“You talk in your sleep.”

Rolling over, he stared at Ethan. Vague, flimsy memories assailed him. They tore apart easily when he tried to examine them, leaving him with shameful fragments slipping through his fingers. “You watch me sleep.”

“Mmm.” Lips a thin line, brow furrowed, Ethan let his hand slip from Spencer’s shoulder and looked away, the irritation back. “So, how many more of these nights are we going to have? You know, I have a life outside of picking up after your crap. I have interests beyond making sure you’re still breathing despite you clearly desiring otherwise, or getting puked on because I get some half-unintelligible phone call in the middle of the night sobbing about ducks. Who is Aaron?”

Spencer blinked. “I don’t know,” he lied automatically. “Ducks?”

“Don’t change the subject. You talked about him. Who is he?”

It wasn’t hard to see what Ethan was thinking. It wasn’t a bad guess. Spencer played along. “Someone I knew,” he mumbled, and ducked his head. If Ethan thought Aaron was part of this life, this downfall, he wouldn’t look further. He’d sideline him as someone irrelevant, just another junkie. He wouldn’t realize that Aaron wasn’t _part_ of the downfall, but the _cause_ of it—

A book thumped onto the bed. Spencer twitched, noting that he was in his bed in the room with the one single instead of in Ethan’s with the double. Perk of being the RA. And another thread of memory—clinging to Ethan’s neck and saying things he shouldn’t have—bit deep and brought a red flush to his cheeks. To hide the flush, he picked the book up cautiously and opened it. A year planner. Each page was a series of days, all dated neatly. All blank.

“What’s this?” He looked up slowly and found Ethan flipping slowly through his lecture notes, frowning. “Ethan?”

“It’s a book.”

Obvious.

Not falling for the bait, Spencer sunk down into his bed and waited. Conversation with Ethan, even when it wasn’t like _this_ was… stilted. Difficult. Sharp-edged and littered with traps and pitfalls he kept stumbling into. And it had always been like that. Mostly always.

Always after the first time Ethan had found him strung out and fucked up, anyway. Maybe before he’d been kinder.

“You can’t do this anymore, Spencer,” Ethan said finally, sitting on the bed and sidling closer. Too close. Spencer stared at his friend’s throat, remembered throwing himself at the other man, and inched away. “You’re going to overdose. Or she’s going to overdose you… she spiked your drink last night thinking you were sober, but you’d already dosed yourself, hadn’t you? Don’t answer that. I already know.”

“I’m not going to—”

“I thought you had.” Ethan’s voice, always so firm and sure—Spencer had heard him sing only once and had been struck dumb by the strength of his unusual tenor. There was a shade of that strength here, locked under the horror. Spencer tried to say something but choked on it, instead bringing his hand up to claw at the scabs on the crook of his elbow. “You realize that, right?”

The fountain. Spencer remembered the fountain. And he looked up to see that memory traced across Ethan’s pallid face, unshaven and gaunt.

“I was okay,” Spencer managed.

“I thought you were dead,” Ethan replied, and knocked the itching hand away. “I thought I was going to have to roll you over and give you CPR with those drunk fucks giggling at me from the side. I thought—”

He stopped and Spencer was thankful.

“You can’t help me,” he finally whispered, because he was just going to keep failing and failing and he didn’t want to drag his friend down too, any more than he had.

“I can try.” Ethan stood, taking the book with him and examining the empty pages with a distant kind of care. “Look, I hate this place. These dorms are bullshit. Too cramped, too loud, too _crap_. I hate places with people crammed in up to the arse, and you like them too much. Too many bodies for you to hide away in.” Spencer was silent, waiting for the crux of this speech. “What I’m about to ask is _stupid_ , so fucking stupid, but shit, I’ve never been smart. Come live with me. Somewhere else.”

Spencer blinked. “I’m fifteen,” he said dumbly. “That’s… not going to look good for you.”

“You’re sixteen next month. And I don’t give a shit. Spence, you asked me to help you…” They stared at each other, the broken and the mostly okay, and he continued: “No one has ever asked _me_ to help them, not ever. I’m normally the one being helped. No one’s ever believed I’m capable of it, and I’m probably not. I’ll probably fuck this up more. But at least when I watch you get buried, I’ll know I tried. Because that’s where this is heading, isn’t it, and I don’t think you have enough friends that I’ll escape being one of the six carrying you that one last time.”

Spencer choked out again, “You can’t help me,” because he couldn’t bear this hope being offered and wanted and then taken away before he could touch it. Some… new start.

“I can try,” replied Ethan stubbornly, closing the book.

“I’m an addict. That’s a chronic condition. It won’t go away because you’re—”

“I know.”

Spencer tried one final time, eyes on the book. “I won’t make it easy. I’ll… mess up. I’ll hurt you.”

“I know.” And that was that. They watched each other, on this crossroads. Except this time Spencer’s phone was drowned in some fountain somewhere, his body was refusing to let him stand up and walk away, and there was no real escape. Ethan held the book out, tapped on a page. “Here. Every day you’re sober, write why. Every day. Every day you’re not, leave it blank. I won’t look unless you let me but… maybe one day you will. Alright?”

Spencer took the book and he took the opportunity offered, because stopping wasn’t an option anymore. Somehow, somewhere, Spencer had made someone else care for him.

And he couldn’t stop if that would hurt another. Not again.

“Alright.”


	10. Epistolary – 1998

**October 12** ** th ** **–** _I owe him. I owe him. I owe him._

**October 13** ** th ** **–** _Two weeks yesterday at this apartment. I owe him. My belongings aren’t unpacked yet. I’m not unselfish. I’m sober because the sheer effort of unpacking keeps me from relapsing. But I’ll continue telling myself I’m doing it for Ethan. But I can tell; he’s just waiting for me to fail._

**October 14** ** th ** **–** _Sixteen days, thirteen hours, twenty-eight minutes. I can do this. Why?_

**October 15** ** th ** **–** _i dont know_

**October 16** ** th **

**October 17** ** th **

**October 18** ** th ** **–** _Mom called yesterday. She never calls. I miss her. I know she could tell. Perhaps she’ll think I’ve gone mad. Perhaps I have. I broke the bottles._

**October 19** ** th  ** **–** _Mom._

**October 20** ** th **

**October 21** ** st ** **–** _Ethans tKen my keys. I leave today i sleep outside. Woth? Prob not. Fuck him. See how he likes SEEING ME._

**October 22** ** nd **

**October 23** ** rd **

**October 24** ** th **

**October 25** ** th **

**October 26** ** th **

**October 27** ** th ** **–** _Spent the week taking increasing amounts without leaving the apartment. Ethan seems tolerant until my cognitive functions are noticeably impaired. Tolerance levels increase the lower my external symptoms are. Negative affect = higher tolerance. Positive affect = aggression. Could repeat experiment with opioids._

**October 28** ** th ** **–** _Happy birthday me. I dislike who I am. Someone saw something kinder in me once, not someone who tests the boundaries of their roommate’s tolerance for drug addiction. Mom called me to tell me she’s proud, but she cried as she said it. I’m no one of importance anymore. They’ll see that one day._

**October 29** ** th ** **–** _Maybe I have something to prove._

**October 30** **th** **–** _There was a little girl at the bus-stop. She smiled at me. Decided not to get off at the eighth stop. Went straight past. She’ll never know her impact._

**October 31** ** st ** **–** _No little girl today. I went to the library and recited children’s picture books to toddlers. Mundane. But I’m sober. Is it this easy?_

**November 1** ** st  ** **–** _Ethan took me to a show. They asked for volunteers to come up and play in the interlude. He sung. He was drunk and fumbled the words and it was probably trite but it felt… Real? Thank you_

**November 2** ** nd ** **–** _Happy birthday, Aaron. 17. I hope you’ve forgotten me._

**[remaining pages are blank]**


	11. Psychoactive, Five

“What are you doing?”

Spencer scowled. What did it _look_ like he was doing? Wasn’t it obvious? Stupid brains. Stupid slow brains he was surrounded by, slowing him down, tripping him up, didn’t they—

“Spencer…”

“I’m improving the efficiency of your morning routine,” Spencer answered, lowering the screwdriver. Cross-legged on the floor, he touched the metal tip of the tool and winced at the shiny-slick texture, dropping it and rubbing his hands feverishly on his bathrobe. “You burn your toast. You always burn your toast. And then you’re late and because you’re late you don’t make more and breakfast is an incredibly important meal that has dramatic effects on cognitive functioning and you don’t eat it because you burn the toast so I’m fixing the toaster to make it Ethan-proof and then you won’t burn it anymore and it will cause an incremental improvement in your quality of—”

Ethan coughed to cut him off, the grating throat-clearing crunchy noise that Spencer hated when he was sober, let alone like this. “Spence,” he said, and crouched with twin cracks of his knees. Spencer reached out to touch those sounds and categorise them and then added ‘remove reasons for crouching from apartment’ to his to-do list. “That’s the microwave oven.”

Oh.

So it was.

“The toaster was yesterday,” Spencer realized out loud, and picked up the screwdriver again to pop the number pad free. “I fixed it.”

A glance to the counter where half the toaster remained.

“You certainly did something to it,” Ethan muttered quietly. “Why aren’t you at class?”

“Weekend,” Spencer tried after a long moment of trying to find the answer to that question, made longer by the sudden realization that he didn’t know how many tiles there were on the kitchen floor. He should know that. He began counting, looked up, saw Ethan, stopped counting.

Up went Ethan’s eyebrow, a sure _nope_ , _try again._ “It’s Wednesday.”

Oops.

“One moment,” Spencer told him, and looked down again. “How many tiles are there? Wait, do we know how many corners there are? We should know that. Fire. Fire safety, somehow, do we have a fire escape plan? We should make one of those, quick—we’ll do it now.” He dropped the shambles of the microwave and sprung up, reaching for Ethan’s arm and then twitching away. “But don’t touch. No touching. Um, no.”

“Jesus,” Ethan hissed, and reached out to grab Spencer’s chin, yanking his jaw around painfully to stare into his eyes. Spencer yelped, trying to fling himself back and tumbling back over the microwave, screwdriver digging painfully into his calf. Ethan went with him, stopping him hitting the ground and pinning him neatly with a knee to his chest. “Stop squirming. I’m not hurting you.”

“Touching,” Spencer snarled, because it itched and itched and he knew his skin was gross, clammy, sweaty. Oily and gross and spotty and Ethan shouldn’t touch him, no one should touch him, he needed to be kept _away_. “Stop!”

“Coke?” Ethan asked, green eyes locked on his. Spencer tried to escape a little more and then froze, transfixed by that gaze. Green green green and dark hair and green and _too close_. “How long?” Spencer shook his head and kept shaking as big hands shook his shoulders. Suddenly, he was aware of every point of contact between their bodies; hands and knees and thighs. He closed his eyes and tried to gather his brain. “Spence, is it coke?”

“No,” Spencer squeaked, because Ethan didn’t like him on coke. And he was trying. Why was Ethan so _hard_ on him? Couldn’t he tell he was trying? After all, he fixed the toaster. Fixed the toaster sort of. Was working on fixing on the toaster. Or was it the microwave oven?

Ethan swore again and slipped off of him and Spencer was thankful because he was _aroused_ and he didn’t want Ethan to notice that because he was scattered but not _that_ scattered. Yet. Maybe.

“With me,” Ethan told him in a voice like he expected him to obey and Spencer had always been good at following orders, so he meekly scrambled up and trotted after his friend, counting corners as he went and wondering if he could make the carpet weave another way if he tried hard enough. Veering widely around the TV, he saw Ethan look at it and frown.

“It’s fine,” Spencer lied.

“Yay,” muttered Ethan, and walked away. Good. Spencer would fix it before he saw it. It was loud and annoying and wouldn’t be quiet even when Spencer pulled the plug from the wall and then removed the power cord completely but Spencer would fix that because Ethan liked to watch it sometimes. “You know, if they’re annoying you, _you_ can leave the room, right? You don’t need to keep cannibalizing my electronics.”

“Fixing,” Spencer corrected him, following up the hall. Bathroom. They were going in the bathroom. Why? Nope. Wait. Not bathroom.

He stopped and stared.

“I don’t want to,” he said, shaking his head. Not Ethan’s room. Never Ethan’s room. That was where he wasn’t allowed to be, the things he wasn’t to have in there. A locked box with painkillers and a packet of instructions he’d given Ethan telling him what to do if he went too far and a book with a note in the front and various things Spencer had wanted to fix and Ethan had tucked away and the instruments that sung when Ethan touched them and screamed if Spencer so much as looked in their direction—

“Come on,” Ethan coaxed, holding out his hand. Spencer wavered. “Spence, it’s alright. Come on. You’re with me. I need help with my coursework.”

Oh. If he needed help, that was different. Spencer padded mutely after, into the room that smelled of music and cologne and Ethan and no one else, because he never let anyone else in here to mar the clean, musky scent. Spencer breathed it in and felt his heart kick a little, prowling the outskirts by the door with his eye on the bed until he paced forward and traced his fingers around the outline of the tussled sheets, learning with his hands exactly where the other man would lie at night.

“Come here,” Ethan persuaded, and Spencer did. Stood next to him and turned to find himself staring back. He ripped away from that hollow-eyed spectre, whining, finding himself tangled in wiry hands. “Shh. No. Stop. It’s what I need help with.”

Spencer closed his eyes so he didn’t have to look into the mirror, anxiety bubbling up inside him like an ooze and setting the whole world to spinning. “Can’t,” he mewled, and turned to huddle against the body offered to him. Ethan let him. Arm around his back, tracing small circles on his spine, a soothing, circular touch. An allowable touch. But the bed yawned behind them and Spencer began to shake.

“Look again,” Ethan said gently. “It’s for my psych class, Spence. Case study. You need to help me with what’s wrong with the boy you see.”

“Me,” mumbled Spencer, brain tripping a moment over trying to puzzle out how many people were in the room.

“No. It’s not you. You’re right here, see? If you weren’t, how could you be touching me? What’s wrong with my case study? I need to know. You know how shaky my grades are.”

Spencer looked. It didn’t look like him. It looked like a gaunt wasted version of something he could have been. Stringy hair, bruised eyes set deep into a skinny face. Maybe distantly related. Maybe not related at all. How would Spencer know what he looked like? Ethan would know better. He relaxed, minutely, at the reassurance he wasn’t in the mirror and set his mind to the puzzle offered. And the anxiety slipped away along with the itching, crawling mania and the swollen sun outside.

“Schizophrenia,” he offered first, because he could see it in the boy’s eyes. Madness. His mother. “Genetic, likely. Maybe he has a family member. Look how much he fears it.”

“He’s too young,” Ethan replied after a long pause. “Only sixteen.”

Good point.

“Drug induced mania,” he finally settled on, eyeing the rashes up the boy’s thin matchstick arms and the repetitive beat of his fingers against his hips. Ethan’s hand rested on the boy’s shoulder, fingers brushing a point where Spencer could see a pulse hammering sporadically away, his chest erratic. “Likely after sustained use. Mydriasis suggests a possible psychedelic, or anything causing large amounts of serotonin to be created. MDMA, methamphetamines, stimulants. Hard to tell without behavioural clues. Likely due to trauma. Depression. This boy is a mess. You shouldn’t be mixed up with him.”

He turned away, the puzzle’s edges turning jagged.

Ethan was jagged too, watching him warily with the bed behind him like a threat. “If stimulant abuse is occurring, what should I alert his caregivers to look for?” he asked carefully. “Pills? Hypodermic? Powder?”

“He’s too smart, you won’t find it,” Spencer whispered, pacing to stop the carpet from moving. “Shelf life of the drug is an expected four hours on an average dose, but then, he’s not average and he does have a degree in chemistry.”

Ethan winced at that. “Coke,” he tried again, and Spencer shook his head and tried to back away, but almost hit the mirror. Darting around Ethan, the man blocked the door. “Meth?” Another head shake and another attempt to escape. But he wasn’t trying to get away from _Ethan_. “Spence, help me here, come on. I’ve been gone days. I need to know what you’ve done.”

“Hours, you’ve been gone hours,” Spencer hissed, and finally turned to face the bed. “It’s Sunday.”

“It’s _Wednesday_. Did you leave the house while I was gone? Have you eaten at all? Did you hurt yourself? You were _clean_. Where did you even get money for drugs? We’re skint, and nothing is missing so you didn’t pawn anything.”

Spencer finally looked at him, giving in and sinking onto the bed with his knees drawn up and all his energy gone. Crashing. He was crashing.

About time.

“Ritalin,” he managed, his stomach twisting. “I don’t want to have sex with you. But don’t leave me. I will if you won’t leave me, I will—”


	12. Alcyone – April, 1994

_(I’m not going to leave you. Shh, shh. Don’t do that. That’s not going to happen—you don’t need to sleep with people to stop them from hurting you, Spence. No sex. But I’m going to stay. Just relax. Just relax)_

“Where are we going?” Spencer asked Harper nervously, tripping over his own laces and stalling as he leaned down to tie them up. “Why would Alexa want to see me?”

Harper looked at him, her expression odd. “Why _wouldn’t_ she want to see you?” she said, brushing her fingers across his cheek and leaving him flushing. “Cutie.”

He thought, bizarrely, of Aaron and the blush grew. She saw it, giggling.

_(How long?_

_Ten minutes. It’s only been ten minutes. Lay back down. Come on._

_How long now?_

_Still ten minutes. That’s it, come here.)_

“Why all the way out _here_?” Spencer almost tripped again, looking around the field for a teacher or someone, anyone really. A lone figure lingered at the goal posts across the grass. “Can’t we go somewhere… I don’t know. More public?”

Harper didn’t meet his eyes as she said, “Oh, but she has something to tell you that has to be _private_ , Spence.”

But she didn’t meet his eyes, and he wasn’t dumb enough to let her walk him into a trap. He wasn’t _that_ desperate to be liked. So he stopped and started backing away, Aaron’s words running through his brain.

_You gotta stick up for yourself._

“I don’t think so,” he said, turning around. “I’m going home.”

_(What about now?_

_Fifteen minutes. You’re shaking less. It’s almost over. Just close your eyes. Damnit kid, I’m not a pillow…_

_Sorry…_

_Naw. Just… fine. But when you wake up on the floor and bitch at me that you’re sore, no sympathy.)_

There was a boy behind him. Evan? Spencer thought his name was Evan, maybe.

“I’m going home,” he told Evan firmly, and sized him up. He was about Aaron’s size. _If you can take me, you can take them._ The throat, then the eyes. He _wasn’t_ going to get hurt before going back to Rhosgobel. Nope. “Don’t touch me.”

But Evan lunged at him—

_(Wha’s tha…_

_I don’t know. Someone at the door. Wait here._

_No. Eth… Ethan? You said you wouldn’t leave, don’t leave, please pleaseplease come back, I can’t breathe, I’m scared, I’m so fucking scared. Ethan, please)_

—and he struck out, hit, kicked, and ran.

And he made it, leaping the fence with the kind of fierce abandon he _never_ felt. Not unless he was someone else. Not unless he was at Rhosgobel, where he _could_ be magic.

“I’m going home!” he shouted, sprinting down the road and away from the jeering calls behind them, “And you’ll never find it!”

The Armies of Fear would _never_ find it.

_(Ethan? How long now?_

_…Ethan?)_


	13. December, 1998

“Ethan?” Spencer rasped, and lifted his head. He was alone. Curled on the floor of Ethan’s room with vomit on his sleeve and a feeling of overwhelming apathy. Everything was dull. The light hurt.

Ethan wasn’t there.

“Guh,” he coughed, his throat rasping, and let his head loll back onto his arm. Everything hurt. Everything was shit. Energy lapsing, body weightless, he slumped down into the carpet and wondered how much he had left tucked into the sill in his room. His hand rolled across the carpet, and he fiddled with the sleeve of a bundled-up sweater against the wall by his head. Probably been used a pillow. It was soft and warm under his—

Spencer blinked. It was warm. Had Ethan just left?

“Ethan?” he rasped again, and levered himself painfully up onto his knees. His head thumped twice, spots dancing, and he dry retched and almost tilted forward into the wall. Stomach cramping and rolling, hot flushes sending his head spinning, he ignored all the warnings of his body to lay the fuck back down and stood. Slowly, he stood. Hand trailing on the wall for balance, he wobbled towards the bedroom door, swallowing down bile that burned.

A thump sounded that wasn’t from his head. Spencer paused, listening intently through the humming in his brain. Was that… Ethan? Muffled voices. Did he have guests over? He stepped closer.

“He’s not home,” said Ethan coolly, in the voice he used when he was _really_ ticked off at Spencer’s choice of bed-mate. The voice that was a hint away from violence, harsh and abrasive. “He hasn’t been home in days. Probably stoned in a gutter somewhere. I can’t help you.”

He was… lying.

Spencer backed away from the door, nausea and disorientation battling with the surge of desire to go out there and make sure his friend was okay. But Ethan was lying—lying about him. Which meant someone was here asking for him. Which meant…

He slipped away from the door, almost tripped on a half-strung guitar, and huddled into the bottom of the closet, tugging down a pile of Ethan’s laundry onto himself.

“Call him home,” said the other voice, and Spencer squeezed his eyes shut and curled up tighter. The closet smelled musty, the dirty laundry sweaty and bitter, and the mix was going right to his gut. “I said _call him_.”

Another thump. A crack. Spencer winced and wondered if that was flesh on flesh. And knew that if it was, he had to go out there. He had to. He couldn’t stay in here while—

“I’m calling him,” Ethan spat. In his pocket, Spencer’s new phone hummed. “See? Calling. Not answering. And he’s _not going to answer_. Go check the morgues. And when you do, tell him I’m fucking done, alright? Last thing I need is tweakers knocking for a hit—”

There was no mistaking what the noise was this time. Ethan coughed and wheezed, almost audibly buckling.

Spencer closed his eyes and gagged silently with the noise, his own gut spasming as though it was he who’d been struck. Another buzz.

“What are you doing?”

“Ringing him again. Problem with that? Here, look. Calling Spencer—not the cops. Calm down.”

And Spencer’s phone hummed again, but this time there was a SMS along with the call. Spencer tugged it out, breathing rasping with fear and pain, squinting down at the bright screen. _Ethan calling_ he dismissed, tapping open the message.

**HIDE**

Spencer closed his eyes again, squeezing a terrified breath out. It was Hutchins. It was Hutchins, and Spencer couldn’t remember why. Knew he’d seen him, sometime, because there was a business card with his stamp on it shoved in a baggie of coke in the bottom of a plant pot in his room. Knew he’d bought from him. Or had he bought from him?

_You idiot_ , he hissed to himself, loathing battling with the drug-induced apathy. _Why’d you get credit from **him**? He’s **mental**._

Stoned Spencer was a dumbass.

He _hated_ stoned Spencer.

“Hey, what the fuck? You can’t just go into my fucking room—I let you in his, _he’s not here_ —” For the second time, Ethan’s voice cut off sharply, and Spencer switched his phone off and hunkered low, heart thudding hard enough to make him shake. The bedroom door cracked open. Heavy footfalls thumped in. Spencer stared at the way light flickered oddly through the closet door, filtered by the clothes over his head, and wondered if they were armed.

Silence. The closet door slammed open, the wall and Spencer shaking with the force. Someone leaned in, thick, pungent scent cloying in the small space, and then vanished.

“You tell your friend to come see us when he comes home,” Hutchins said, feet moving away. “As _soon_ as he comes home, got it? If he can’t pay, I have work for him. And don’t look at me like that—I know _what_ he is.”

“He’s sixteen,” Ethan replied thickly, his voice wet sounding. Spencer swallowed hard and felt something hot on his cheek. Scratchy hot and he couldn’t scratch it away for fear of making a noise. “He’s a kid. A dumb kid. Look elsewhere.”

“He’s useful.”

And then they were gone. Ethan didn’t move. Spencer only knew he was still there because he could hear that damp breathing still, even as the front door slammed shut and a car alarm shrieked outside.

Spencer couldn’t move. He was frozen. Fear and shock and dismay and guilt battled to leave him mute and sobbing underneath this pile of sweaty clothes, the drug draining away and leaving him weak.

And then the clothes tugged away and Ethan looked down at him.

“Oh,” said Spencer, and began to cry more, because there was blood on Ethan’s mouth and shirt from a deep gash on his lip, his jaw swelling.

“Stop it,” Ethan said firmly, and hauled him out, shedding laundry. “How much?”

“I don’t know,” Spencer choked out between sobs, helplessly crying now. Shoulders hunched and chest heaving, he couldn’t breathe through the panic crushing him. “I don’t remember, Ethan, I _don’t_ , and you should have let them find me. Why’d you do that? Why’d you protect me? Why do you _always_ protect me?”

“They were armed.” Ethan stepped back, rubbing his sleeve over his face and smearing it into a ghastly mask. “Hmm. When do you get your scholarship money next? Will it be enough?”

“I don’t know,” Spencer admitted. “It comes in two weeks but it… should be? I haven’t been using enough to run through _that_ much, but he jacks up the prices if he knows we’re… reliant. And uses interest.”

“You’re a fucking idiot—” Ethan began, fury clouding his features now he realized Spencer was relatively sober. Fingers digging into Spencer’s shoulder, he shook him. Spencer whimpered, feeling sick, and knew he deserved this and so much more. “—now pack a bag.”

Oh.

“It’s okay,” Spencer whispered, ripping his shoulder away and staggering past out of the room. “Ethan, it’s okay. I’ll leave. I’ll go. You shouldn’t have to deal with this, I’ll…”

“I’m not done.” Spencer turned, and Ethan was packing too, throwing clothes into a guitar case that he used in lieu of actually owning a bag. “Go pack your things and bring it in here. I’ll be checking it _and_ you for bullshit you shouldn’t have, and then we’re going until you get money in and can fix this without getting knee-capped.”

“Going where?” Spencer asked, still reeling that he wasn’t going to be thrown out. Stats bounced through his head—on the teenaged homeless, drug abuse in the transient population, life expectancy on the streets…

“New Orleans.”


	14. Pantoufles

The battered sign hung loose on a rusted ring, swinging gaily in the breeze. Spencer could almost hear the whining creak of the rotted wood, the dull thump of the sign smacking into the overgrown slash pine behind it. _Mon Abri_ was etched and painted into the wood, long since faded from sapphire to a baby blue, but overtop a clumsy, young hand had at some point in the distant past splashed _Pantoufles!_ in a violent black.

The car bumped over a hump of dirt as Ethan turned carefully into a narrow drive. Shivering and flushed all at once, despite the chill December air, Spencer pressed his mouth against the glass and watched his breath fog as the sign vanished from sight into the dawning blue morning.

“Slippers,” Ethan grunted, and it was the first time he’d spoken since they’d left DC, beyond ‘do you want a sandwich’ and ‘don’t puke in the car’.

“Hmm?” Spencer asked, looking at him. Ethan looked wrecked. Skin white in the sick gleam of the dash and eyes shadowed black, he looked like Spencer felt.

“Slippers,” Ethan repeated. “Pantoufle is French for slipper. I hated what this place was called. Refuge or shed or some tweedy French bullshit… I renamed it when I was ten. Thought it was funny.”

“Oh.” Spencer looked back to where the sign hung, feeling some strange feeling bubble up as they bumped down the drive and he imagined a younger Ethan jauntily strolling under the overgrown trees with spray paint in hand. Maybe making his own sanctuary to hide away from the world in, just as two other boys had far from here. “This was your house?”

“Mm.”

Headlights turned as they rounded the last bend, revealing a sweep of what had probably used to be lawn; it was now silver-frosted mud. Behind it, a battered house perched on the side of a slow-flowing river, tilting forward as though peering down to check its reflection in the black depths below. The yellow light of the car illuminated blank, staring windows and the peeling façade of a weary home, before it chugged off with the motor. Ethan huffed, his breath already twirling white around his scruffy mouth as the cold air stole in, his eyes dark and locked on the battered front door.

“Does anyone live here?” Spencer asked uncertainly, rubbing at his arms and finding them sticky where he’d itched the sores open.

“Yeah,” Ethan said quietly. “Wait here.” He stepped out of the car, striding up the grassy drive and letting himself in. The door, unlocked, banged shut behind him, and Spencer saw lights flicker on upstairs. He huddled down into the sweater Ethan had thrown at him to put on, folding his arms back into the sleeves and covering his mouth and nose with it. Waiting for something to happen, anything to draw his mind away from the hurting and the sickness and the dreary, broken misery of knowing there was no nearby relief from his growing temptation.

And then the door opened again and Ethan leaned out, waving his arm. Spencer slid out after him, wincing as the crack of the door shutting burst through his aching head, and slouched towards his friend. _Creaaaaak_ complained the wooden boards under his feet, bowing with his weight, and he slunk past his silent friend and into the house.

Inside, unlike the gloomy exterior, was warmly inviting. Spencer blinked, finding that he was standing on a plush rug in a house polished to a fine sheen. Every inch of the wooden floors was shined and worn, the tables and cupboards clustered against the wall littered with photos and knickknacks. The entire place smelled of wood smoke, of lavender, a whisper of something else familiar and comforting.

“Who’s this then?” asked a woman on the stairs. Spencer looked up at her, quailing back a bit from her cold eyes. She was Ethan in a woman’s frame, and her expression was fierce. “Didn’t know you had friends, Eth.”

“Shut up, Fiona,” he snapped. From above their heads, floorboards creaked. A baby squalled. “Where’s Gram?”

“You can’t do this again,” the woman hissed, folding her arms. “Rocking up, middle of the night—”

“Morning, actually,” Ethan correctly mildly.

“—probably skunk drunk—”

“I’m sober.”

“—with some _kid_. Gram isn’t well, I don’t know who the hell this is, and you’re bringing him around Joshua—”

Ethan made the noise. The growling _hmph_ he did when he was really pissed off, and Spencer and the woman both looked at him. “I’d never put Josh in danger,” he said, his voice dark. “You gonna throw us out, Fi? Better get the balls up before Gram sees us here. She’ll be pissed if you do.”

“You’re a shit of a brother, Ethan Jackson,” Fiona said finally, after a long pause. “A right shit. You eaten?”

“Is that Ethan?” someone called. Spencer blinked. He’d expected a withered old woman to appear at the top of the stairs, but the lady who appeared was thin and hale looking, her eyes bright and clear. A toddler kicked in her arms, held easily in a strong grip, his fingers bunching into a white-laced nightgown. “Oh, Ethan! Love! You’re visiting, how wonderful! And a friend, hello Ethan’s friend! Oh, Fi, honey, take Joshy. I want to hug my grandson and his friend.”

Suddenly, ‘Gram’ had an armful of Ethan, bounding down the stairs with the exuberance of a woman in her twenties instead of—actually, try as he might, Spencer couldn’t place her age. Ethan hugged back with a voracious kind of affection he never showed _anyone_ , and Spencer swallowed.

And before Spencer could slink back into the dim shadows of a coat rack behind him, Gram grabbed him. “Hello, tiny thing,” she declared, hugging him tight with her narrow hands roaming his back. “Good lord! Tiny thing indeed—when was the last time this boy ate?!”

“Oh, rarely,” Ethan said innocently. Spencer managed to twist his body around so he could glare at his friend from within the bounds of the embrace. Ethan was smiling, _wickedly_. “We never cook. Not ever. I think all we eat is fast food, and Spencer _never_ eats enough. Growing boy like him, travesty really…”

“Oh, you’re such a _prick_ ,” Fiona breathed from the stairs, burying her face into the boy’s hair as she hid a smile.

Gram, as Ethan had clearly intended, was mortified. “I’m cooking breakfast!” she declared, holding the whimpering Spencer at arm’s length and looking him up and down. “No one comes here and leaves unfed!”

And she bounded away.

“You look confused,” Ethan said smugly, as Fiona flickered past them with a sniff, a smile still curling one corner of her mouth. The toddler watched them curiously.

“Yeah,” Spencer croaked, aware his voice was wrecked by exhaustion and misery. “How do _you_ have such a nice grandma? Is she aware that you’re awful?”

Ethan’s laugh was shocked, sharp, and probably the only thing Spencer could cling to that was currently _good_. He followed Ethan into the kitchen and the scent of cooking and wondered what came next.

What came next, he discovered, was this.

“We’ll sleep in the guesthouse,” Ethan said over a plateful of syrupy pancakes, stirring the syrup with his fork. Spencer stared down at his and felt sick, eyes burning into the top of his scalp as the family watched him curiously. “Just for a week or two.”

“I don’t like it,” Gram replied, tapping her fork on the table. “That place is a ruin, Ethan. It’s drafty and damp and we never did fix that window before your Pop died, bless him. Why can’t you stay in the house with us?”

“And sleep where?” Fiona cut in. Spencer lifted his gaze and watched numbly as she fed her son, Ethan’s _nephew_ , and the boy pulled excited faced at his mushy peas. “One on the couch and what, one in with you, Gram? Or do we fold the skinny bit there into the crib with Joshy?”

“Wit’ Doshy,” the boy decreed, flicking his peas at Ethan. Ethan wiped his sleeve and frowned at him, earning a scowl in return. “Yuck.”

“We have sleeping bags in the attic, somewhere,” Ethan said, dropping his fork. His food half-eaten. Spencer took it as an excuse to lower his as well. “And we won’t have much time to sleep anyway.” His eyes flickered to Spencer, and Spencer knew he could see the shivers beginning to work their way through him, the tell-tale trembling of his hand. He tried to hide it, desperate not to seem broken in front of this compact little family. Something he didn’t have.

Something Ethan seemed to almost… resent. Pushing his nephew’s grasping hands away, sniping at his sister, only really warm to his grandmother. There was something there Spencer was missing.

He suspected it had something to do with Fiona slipping away into the living room, only just visible to Spencer’s curious eye, and locking the alcohol cabinet set high into the wall, pocketing the key. Maybe Spencer wasn’t the only one with vices.

“We’ll clean it up a bit,” Ethan was continuing, standing and peering out the window. “Windows could use a scrub too. Bit of paint on the sills. We’ll make ourselves useful while we’re here, Gram. Teach this kid the meaning of hard work.” He looked at Spencer coolly as he said this, and Spencer shivered again, his stomach twisting and his face turning cold as bile began to bubble in his throat. “Come on Spencer, let’s go check the place out.”

Spencer tried not to stumble as he mutely followed his friend out the back-door, leaving behind the warm kitchen and the childish babbles of the baby. They crossed a lawn more weed than grass. Spencer staggered, seeing a tumble-down building set quietly back into a copse of trees, and barely made it there before dropping to his knees and hurling into the frosty flowerbed.

A hand touched his shoulder as his body buckled forward and expelled everything he’d put into it, another twist low in his body warning him that he was about to head into a hell of a time.

“Water works in there,” Ethan murmured, fingers working gently across Spencer’s sweaty back, nails catching on the wool. “Bathroom, shower, kitchenette. It’s private, if a bit dirty and unheated. Fi doesn’t care enough to poke around, and Gram always gives me space if I stay out here.”

“So, we’re just going to hide here until I get money?” Spencer croaked, wiping his mouth and summoning energy from _somewhere_ to stop from slumping into the mess he’d made.

“Nope,” Ethan replied, and hauled him back up by his collar, the kindness vanishing. “You’re going to work, kid. No free rides at Gram’s house. How good are you at painting?”

Spencer had a feeling he was about to find out.

 

* * *

 

Their new abode was everything it had been promised. Damp and cold and Spencer didn’t have the chance to appreciate either of these things because his body was swinging wildly from ‘overheating’ to ‘freezing’ and he was barely coping with either. When he started shivering and stammering, Ethan would hand him a block of sandpaper and get him working on the walls ready to apply the basecoat. When the heat returned in a burning flush, he sent him outside to awkwardly split logs so they’d fit into the small fireplace in the main house. After showing him how to do it. Spencer, thankfully, had managed not to chop a limb off. Yet.

The first day, Spencer hit the ground twice. Ethan told him to sand, and sand he did. Refusing to listen to the cues his pathetic body keep spitting at him, unsure if it was withdrawal or exhaustion or something more sinister and deciding he’d push through whatever it was. Twice, spots danced and told him he’d gone too far; twice, he woke seconds later on his side with Ethan leaning over him.

“You sit for ten minutes every half hour,” Ethan finally informed him, frowning as he run his fingers over Spencer’s sweaty cheek. “I’m starting to think this is a bad idea.”

“No,” Spencer said, swallowing down water that tasted coppery and rank. “This is the _best_ idea.”

And he worked and he worked and he worked with a searing, single-minded focus until the sun was down again and his breath was fogging from his lips and he tumbled, exhausted, into the sleeping bag.

He slept deeply and didn’t dream.

The next day, they did it again. He only passed out once. He threw up eight times. He managed to eat some soup that Ethan appeared with around lunch time, prying the sanding block from cramped and blistered hands and putting the bowl in its place.

After lunch, the axe slipped and thunked neatly into the ground by Spencer’s foot. Ethan, always hovering nearby when Spencer split the logs, quietly said, “That’s enough,” and that was the end of Spencer’s lumberjacking days.

Not once did he say _well done_ or _you’re working hard_ or _that’s it, you’re doing it right._

Spencer, determined to get it right, decided that meant he had to do _better_.

Instead, Ethan waited until Spencer’s energy flagged, muscles and body betraying him and dragging him down, and he’d say things like, “Missed a bit there,” or, “Is that all you’ve got?” or even, “Mm, bit disappointing.”

Spencer hated him. He hated the grit in his eyes, he hated the sweat, he hated that all he could smell was vomit and damp. He hated his head that told him everything was awful and hateful and cold and cruel. He hated himself. He hated blowing his nose and having the tissue blot with black from the particulates he was inhaling. He hated the blisters on his hands and feet, the muscles that shook when he stood, the screaming pain in every part of his body.

But he kept going. And going. And going, until he couldn’t anymore—six days in and so tired he couldn’t even think to hate anymore—and threw his paintbrush at the wall with a screamed **_fuck off!_** and stormed from the house. Found himself curled on a swing on the porch, broken and bleeding and with nothing left in him but tears that burned as he shed them.

A creak of the wood. Spencer curled tighter and moaned as his back spasmed. “I can’t,” he sobbed, and bit down savagely on his lip. “I can’t, I’m done, just let me _go_.”

“May I see your hands?” said a voice not Ethan at all. Spencer jerked up, staring at Gram as she stared back at him, curiously and a little sad, a small box held gently in front of her. “If they’re anything like Ethan’s when he gets in one of his moods, they’ll be needing some love, love.”

Spencer couldn’t talk to her. Not this bright, affectionate woman skirting the edges of Ethan’s life. Instead, he just mutely held his hands out, palms up, and winced at the weeping blisters splashed across his skin.

She sat next to him, just as mute, and quietly cleaned and dressed them. And then they watched the clouds scud across the December sky.

“Do you like to read?” Gram asked suddenly, looking away as though to give Spencer privacy for this answer.

Spencer managed, “Yes,” and missed who he’d used to be.

“Ethan used to read,” she said, and sounded gloomy now. “Nose in a book, all the time. Or hands on the piano. Always singing or reading, sometimes both. Fiona used to say that the words went in one hole and tumbled immediately out as noise from another, never sticking around to make him smarter. His room is the second on the left upstairs. Perhaps he still has some books in there that may interest you. I’m going to go see how much you two busy bees have done. Take your time—Ethan always forgets that when _he_ feels driven by his demons, not everyone around him is as fixated. You know, I did say to his mother ‘your boy has stopped singing’, but did she listen? She did not. I’d so love to hear him sing again.”

Spencer blinked, opening his mouth to reply, but she was gone. And he had so many questions, fading in the silence. Instead, he kicked his sneakers twice against the scuffed boards of the porch, and then finally stood and stole into the big house. Into that homely kitchen, a far cry from the broken apartment they lived in or the desperate attempts of a ten-year-old on his own to make a cooking space he’d had previously. He crept through that room, like a mouse, and made his way upstairs on feet that ached.

He found the room in a narrow, faded hallway. The door was unadorned. Glancing around, Spencer for a moment imagined the lives that had been lived here, and then he pushed open the stubborn door and stepped inside into Ethan’s life.

“Oh,” said Spencer, because it wasn’t at all what he’d expected. It wasn’t a teenager’s room, loud and brash with all the force of an abrasive personality. There weren’t girls on the walls or music posters littering every surface. There were no sports trophies or model aeroplanes or photos of friends.

It was a child’s room. Dust lifted under his sneakers from a dinosaur-patterned rug under the toe of his shoe, and the bed was small and narrow. Stuffed toys huddled together for safety on the untouched bed; a lion and a monkey and something patchwork and well-loved. _ETHAN JACKSON COIRO_ was painted on the wall above the bed in bright colours faded by time.

But the bookshelf and desk… they told a different story. One that Spencer trailed his fingers over, and _knew_. Knew like he didn’t know the bitter rivalry between the two Coiro siblings; knew like he didn’t know the kitchen downstairs or how to respond to a grandma’s hug or a toddler’s curious touch. Complicated textbooks were stacked neatly, sorted carefully. The notebooks that Spencer cautiously opened were filled with a tight, childish scrawl that nevertheless wrote at a college-aged level. Tucked behind the books, like a source of shame, dust covered academic trophies, awards, framed certificates. Another notebook was filled with music. Nothing Spencer recognised as he skimmed the notes. Ethan, however old he’d been, had written it all himself. Composed it, himself.

And then, only noticed because Spencer leaned closer to the books on the shelf and felt glass crunch slightly under his knee, he found a broken frame kicked furiously under the bookshelf. It took all his care to force his still-trembling hands to work it free, and find a yellowed clipping torn by a reckless blow. He read it silently, and then he read it again. And he wondered how he fit into all of this; just what his worth was to the man who kept trying to save his life.

_Young, gifted, and purposeful: Intellectual prodigy, Ethan Coiro accepted into The Juilliard School in New York at fourteen-years of age!_

“What happened to you?” Spencer asked the smiling boy grinning proudly up at him with his acceptance letter in one hand, trying to parse that image with the image of the scruffy and world-weary man with the barely-passing grades still trudging through college—for behavioural psychology, _not_ music—at twenty-three.

“What happened to _you_?” Ethan responded, leaning in the doorway. Spencer winced, lowering the frame and looked up at his friend as heat rushed across his face and turned his cheeks red. “Don’t infer anything from that.”

“Like what?” Spencer asked, anger battling with the cruelty withdrawal always left in him and leaving him callous. “That you’re only helping me because you’re trying to make up for fucking your own life over?”

Ethan didn’t answer, and Spencer threw the frame down and strode out, barely pausing to brush beside him.

“I’m not you,” Spencer murmured, hesitating with their elbows brushing and his head buzzing with something that felt almost like disappointment. Like some small voice inside him that whispered, _Ethan hasn’t given up on you so you **must** be worth something, _ had been finally silenced by the realization Ethan was in it to save some past potential he’d once had, not anything Spencer could offer him. “I’m not you, Ethan… so don’t project whatever you did onto me.”

He left Ethan standing there, and went back to work. At least when he was working, painting, he wasn’t thinking. And that was something.

Ethan didn’t rejoin him and he finally fell asleep alone, the sleeping bag beside his empty.

 

* * *

 

On the final day, Ethan woke him at the crack of dawn with a shovel and a bag. Spencer blinked, recognising the bag. Froze at the sight of the bag.

“Where did you get that?” he stammered, slipping up out of the sleeping bag and being thankful that they’d spent the last two days sealing all the gaps in the building and replacing the broken panes of the window. It was warmer now, notably, the walls freshly painted and the floors swept clean. A changed façade. Spencer wished he could change himself so easily.

But the bag. The bag wasn’t change. Inside it was a box. Inside that box were two sections, one hidden by the other. The top held needles. Two vials. His out, for when just pausing the torturous thoughts wasn’t enough anymore. He doubted he’d ever take that out, at least while his mom and Ethan were still around to be hurt by that choice, but he always liked to have options.

The bottom section held letters. The worst of them. The best of them. The ones that hurt him beyond what he could stand. In there was a _no_ and the end of his halcyon days.

“Move,” was all Ethan said bluntly. Spencer moved. Dressed quickly and warmly and picked up the shovel Ethan pointed out, stumbling out after him into a clear-sky morning. They tramped away from the river, back into the trees, until they stopped by a knurled pine with knotty roots. And Ethan pointed at the ground in front. “Dig,” he said, and Spencer dug.

After a beat, Ethan joined him. The ground was hard. Rock-solid and they were both panting before they’d even broken the surface. But once they did, the ground under gave way, filling the air with a beery, loamy scent, and then Ethan started talking.

“Dad,” he grunted, slashing the shovel down across a wayward root, “always used to tell us to bury problems that were too big to solve. Worms, he said, solved everything. No one gives a shit about things that are worm-eaten.”

Spencer kept digging.

“I don’t think it’s good advice. I think things that are buried deep are still _there_ , just waiting for someone to unearth them. But then again, I think Dad was full of crap most of the time. Only smart thing that man ever did was leave. He’s in Florida, somewhere, travelling. Mom too. They’ve got good lives apparently, now. They never did like having kids. Think we were burdens, me and Fi. Right from the start. Maybe they could have dealt with one, but when we both popped out? I think they checked out right then. And it was me and Fi against the world, from the get-go.”

Spencer paused for a moment, before resuming his work. He’d… assumed. He’d been wrong.

“We’re gonna bury our problems today, Spence. It’s not gonna solve them. They’re still going to exist. For a stupid long time, probably, because these tins are fucking waterproof and worm-proof and logic proof too, I assume, since we both kept them to torture ourselves with.” Spencer looked up, just in time to have his box thrust at him. He took it, shaking with more than cold now. “We’ll bury them and we’ll go home and you’ll probably relapse again. You’ve had a fright, but not enough of one, and… we’ll deal with that. But without these. No more blaming these. When we go home, if you fuck up, you fuck up because of _you_. Not whatever is in here that I keep finding you staring at when you’re coked out of your mind and desperate to hurt.”

Spencer hefted his own box, the letters within, and then looked at the one Ethan held. Smaller. More compact. Just as deadly.

“What’s in yours?” Spencer asked suddenly, rudely, and Ethan tilted his head.

“What’s in yours?” Ethan replied pertly, and Spencer should have seen that coming.

And then he made up his mind. They’d go back to DC tomorrow, tired and blistered and dirty, and they’d pay back the money Spencer had stupidly borrowed. One narrow escape. And _something_ had to change; he didn’t trust himself that it would be him.

“Rhosgobel,” he answered, and threw the box into the hole. Something within smashed as it thumped home among the dirt and the worms. Down among the dead things, rotting in the forest floor. “It’s Rhosgobel.”

Ethan didn’t reply. Just threw his own box in and began turning the soil back into the hole. Spencer helped him. He couldn’t help but feel this was a turning point, but not the one Ethan intended it to be. Because he didn’t always get high to forget. Sometimes he got high to remember.

And if he didn’t have the letters, how else would he remember Aaron?


	15. Epistolary - 1999

**January 1** ** st ** **–** _At this moment I am many things. I am alive. I am sober. I am sitting on the roof of the guesthouse and Ethan is asleep next to me. Fireworks overhead, Happy New Year. I don’t think he expected me to be here to wish him that. Thank you, Ethan._

**January 2** ** nd ** **–** _His nephew calls me Specky. How odd. The developmental stages of children are fascinating._

**January 3** ** rd ** **–** _We’re going home today. Remarkable. It feels like only days since we left the first time, after that terrible week of sobering up. I paid my debts to those who threatened us. I owe them nothing now. They took my scholarship and demanded more and I was sure I would die there. Ethan paid the rest. Whatever his reasons for helping me, be they personal or otherwise, it doesn’t matter. I can’t disappoint him._

**January 4** ** th ** **–** _I am sober today because we are going home. I will be sober tomorrow because when we are home, I am going to show him everywhere I use to hide the darkest parts of myself. Almost everywhere. I cannot show him the box buried in his Gram’s backyard; even if I could, I doubt I would want to. He’s seen enough of my contemptibility._

**January 5** ** th ** **–** _I am sober today because I said I would be._

**January 6** ** th ** **–** _I am sober today because I choose to be._

**January 7** ** th ** **–** _I am sober today because I read a book and recall what I read. The contents haven’t been lost to my drug-fractured brain. Until now, I hadn’t realized how much I miss reading. Now I wonder, what other aspects of myself did I lose in those hazy years? Will I find them again? I cannot miss another day._

 

* * *

 

**FROM: FI**

**HI**

 

**TO: FI**

**WHAT THE FUCK. HOW DID YOU GET THIS NUMBER. I’M CALLING THE COPS**

 

**FROM: FI**

**HA HA ETH. HOW’S SPECK?**

 

**TO: FI**

**……… I REFUSE TO ANSWER WHEN YOU CALL HIM THAT**

 

**FROM: FI**

**HE STILL SOBER? ANY BLANK DAYS?**

 

**TO: FI**

**YOU’RE A WITCH. I KNEW IT. I DIDN’T TELL YOU ANY OF THAT**

 

**FROM: FI**

**HIS HANDS SHAKE**

**FROM: FI**

**HE BARELY EATS**

**FROM: FI**

**HE DOESN’T SLEEP**

 

**TO: FI**

**STOP**

 

**FROM: FI**

**HES YOU IN A SWEATERVEST ETHAN, DID YOU THINK WE WOULDN’T NOTICE?**

**FROM: FI**

**I STILL HAVE THE YEAR PLANNER YOU USED WHEN YOU WERE SOBERING UP.**

 

**TO: FI**

**WHAT WHY**

 

**FROM: FI**

**IM THE ONE WHO BOUGHT YOU THE FUCKING THING, IDIOT. IS IT SO HARD TO BELIEVE I CARE?**

**FROM: FI**

**GUESS SO. IGNORING ME IS CHILDISH**

**FROM: FI**

**JUST TELL ME HOW MANY DAYS ARE BLANK SINCE YOU LEFT. I LIKE HIM. HE’S SWEET. DESERVES BETTER.**

 

**TO: FI**

**NONE.**

**TO: FI**

**THANK YOU**

 

* * *

 

> _Spencer,_
> 
> _I must say, Spencer, looking at your results for last year, I was concerned. Academic probation seemed likely and there was discussion of your removal from your doctorate program if your reengagement couldn’t be achieved. Today, I reopened your file fully expecting the worst._
> 
> _Your tutors and professors are all extolling the dramatic turn-around in your behaviour and your engagement. Well done. I hope it continues. Unfortunately, if it slips again, action will be taken. You have far too much potential to waste._
> 
> _Regards, Professor Kale_

 

* * *

 

You are JAZZTASTICALLY INVITED to the SPLENDIFEROUS opening of JEREMY’S JAZZ

COME LISTEN TO THE VOLUPTOUSLY VERBOSE VOCALIZATIONS OF VETHAN (ALLITERATION IS FUN)

BE THERE OR BE A PLANE FIGURE WITH FOUR EQUAL STRAIGHT SIDES AND FOUR RIGHT ANGLES!

: )

 

**what the fuck is this?**

_You asked me to design invites for the new club you’re working at. I designed. Ta da! THIS IS ME BEING A GOOD HOUSEMATE._

**I hate you so much Spencer**

_That’s because you’re a plane figure with four equal straight sides and four right angles, and I’m thinking outside the box._

 

_: )_

 

* * *

 

**TO: ETHAN**

**UM**

 

**FROM: ETHAN**

**YES?**

 

**TO: ETHAN**

**…. WHERE ARE WE? WHERE ARE YOU??? WHY IS THERE AN ANGRY CRAB IN MY PANTS**

 

**FROM: ETHAN**

**…. WHY ARE YOU TEXTING ME IF THERE’S A CRAB IN YOUR PANTS. PRIORITIES?**

 

**TO: ETHAN**

**IM NOT WEARING THE CRAB**

**TO: ETHAN**

**OR THE PANTS**

**TO: ETHAN**

**I DON’T LIKE BEACHES AND MY HEAD HURTS**

 

**FROM: ETHAN**

**IM BRINGING BREAKFAST BACK. I TOLD YOU ROADTRIPS ARE FUN. WHY ARENT YOU WEARING PANTS?**

 

**TO: ETHAN**

**BECAUSE THERES A CRAB IN THEM**

**TO: ETHAN**

**YOU NEVER LISTEN TO ME**

 

**FROM: ETHAN**

**WOW. YOU GET SNOTTY WHEN YOU’RE HUNGOVER. SEE, THIS IS WHY I DON’T DRINK.**

 

**TO: ETHAN**

**GUESS YOU COULD SAY…**

 

**FROM: ETHAN**

**DON’T**

 

**TO: ETHAN**

**…. I’M A LITTLE CRABBY**

 

**FROM: ETHAN**

**IM EATING YOUR BREAKFAST. AND IM NOT EVEN GOING TO ENJOY IT. THIS IS SPITE EATING**

 

**TO: ETHAN**

**YOU’RE BEING VERY SHELLFISH**

**TO: ETHAN**

**I’M SORRY**

**TO: ETHAN**

**ETHAN?**

 

* * *

 

**October 28** ** th ** **– Spencer is far too drunk to fill this out, and quite adamant that it must be done before he took an impromptu nap on the kitchen floor. He looks very comfy, so I’m fulfilling his drunken wishes and filling this out for him. However, I don’t know why he’s clean today, so instead I’m going to write why I am. Because life isn’t meant to be suffered through, Spencer. You’re going to wake in the morning and I’m going to deny writing this, but you’ll always have it. And I want you to read it again and again whenever you need it. Life isn’t meant to be suffering, but there’s suffering in life. And you have to live through it—the good and the bad. You can’t dope it away. Trust me, I tried. And I wish I could get everything I’ve lost back, everything I miss, everyone I failed. I wish I could reach into the past and take myself by the hand and pull him forward to show him that things CAN be good. They WILL get better. You’re seventeen today, and over the past year you’ve proven that over and over and over again, and I am so fucking proud of you. And, despite the suffering you’ve caused me, I’m so very happy I met you Spencer. Happy Birthday.**

**October 31** ** st ** **–** _You wrote over the whole page, Ethan!  I don’t know how to respond to this in person, so I’m replying here. I’ll never verbally thank you for this and I don’t think you want me to. You’ve left me very little room to reply in, but that’s okay, because I don’t need to say much. Thank you for pulling me out of that fountain._

 

* * *

 

**November 3** **rd** **–** _I missed your birthday. How did I miss your birthday? I didn’t even… think. I didn’t think of you. I didn’t think of you_ **.** _(but happy belated birthday) You’d be at college now, just beginning._

_You’ll be fantastic._

 

* * *

 

> _Dear Aaron,_
> 
> _I haven’t thought about you in a while. That’s a lie—to be far more accurate, I haven’t thought of you in great detail for a while. Like all extensive influences, you’re on my mind in countless everyday minutiae. I do wonder where you are. I wonder where you’ve been. I wonder, mostly, where you’re going. And I hope you’re happy._
> 
> _I regret not saying goodbye to you. I’m not okay. I know I’m not okay. But I’m doing a damn good job faking it, Aaron, and I learned that from you. From watching you keep a smile on your face despite what your father was doing to you.  Ethan is pleased because he thinks I’ve recovered. He’s lying to himself._
> 
> _Addiction is classed a chronic brain disorder. Chronic: persisting for a long time or constantly recurring. I’m still an addict. I will always be an addict. And I might not think of **you** as much anymore, but not a day has gone by that I haven’t thought of the drugs._
> 
> _I’m not okay. I feel very little. I haven’t felt much of anything since I buried you._
> 
> _I feel very little. What I do feel is confusing._
> 
> _Do you know the worst thing about being sober? Everything is so mundane now. I received my doctorate this year. Seventeen years old and I’m Dr. Spencer Reid now. I declined any great celebration for it, because it feels as though it happened to someone else. I don’t care. Mom came to see me. I hugged her and felt nothing._
> 
> _I write to you and I feel nothing._
> 
> _I should be desperate for something, but I’m not. On the outside, I’m you. Smiling and faking it and writing a disordered letter I don’t intend upon sending. I eat without feeling hungry; I taste nothing. I haven’t had a sexual partner in over a year, and yet my libido remains null except in exceptional circumstances that I’m concerned is tied with my reaction to you. On the outside, I’m you, spoiled and repetitive and maddening even when sober._
> 
> _On the inside, I am nothing._
> 
> _And Ethan can never know._


	16. January, 2000

The TV had never worked quite right, not since Spencer had tried to ‘improve it’ during one of his manic moments, and tended to cut out and turn off at the most inopportune times. The inopportune time being New Year’s Eve as Ethan sprawled out on the living room floor in thick pyjamas and his blue dressing gown, blankly waiting for the ball drop as the world celebrated the new millennium.

A flicker and the set turned off. Ethan looked at Spencer, who was nursing his sixth glass of a wine their neighbour had given them, and trying not to drive his housemate mad with drunken rambling.

He was failing. “Did you know that the ball has dropped every year since 1907, except for twice during World War II to honour wartime blackouts?” Spencer rambled, jiggling the radio dial and grinning sheepishly as Ethan smacked the TV set with the palm of his hand. “What now?”

“Well, we could hang out the window and attempt to squint up at the fireworks,” Ethan said with a twist of his mouth, dropping back and glancing at the window. “Fucking freezing out there though.” By his side, a glass of juice was collecting condensation on the carpet. “Stop dancing about.”

“I can’t help it,” Spencer said, and did just that. A quick pace in a circle, a shy duck of his head, and a laugh. “I get restless on red wine.”

“It makes me sleepy,” Ethan replied. “Well, I’m not freezing my dick off watching some pretty lights go boom. Give me that.”

He took the radio, fiddled with it. But the expected jazz didn’t boom as he stood back up and set it back in its place, volume turned up loud enough to rattle Spence’s giddy drunk brain. Instead, Spencer stared at it as it, bizarrely, blasted Ricky Martin.

“If you’re already silly, we may as well harness that,” Ethan shouted over the music, tying his dressing gown closed and reaching across to take the precariously tipping mug of wine from Spencer’s hand. Spencer tipped with the wine, giggling again and letting it be taken. Taking a sip from Spencer’s cup, and then another, Ethan nudged the wobbly coffee table out of the way and set both cups on there. “I’ve been threatening to teach you to dance. Rollover of the new millennium seems a decent enough time as any.”

“I don’t dance,” Spencer said first, blinking rapidly as he imagined dancing and breaking possibly everything. The music barked out a chorus, and he glared at the radio. “And I _certainly_ don’t dance to _Livin’ Da Vida Loca_.”

“You broke the tape player,” Ethan said pertly. “You get what you’re given. Now, follow my feet.”

Spencer tried. He _really_ tried. And he mostly managed it. Ethan was a confident partner, dragging him around the room with very little care for whether he stumbled or tripped into walls, and when the music built to a wild whirl, he let go of Spencer’s hand and spun off into his own fast dance with a whoop of excited laughter and a wide grin he rarely wore. Breathless and sweaty and more than a little drunk, Spencer took the chance to gulp down the rest of his drink, check his watch—seven minutes to midnight—and then watch as his friend seemed to forget there’d been a purpose to this dance other than losing himself in the music.

“Oi,” Ethan said, when the music changed. “Get back out here!” A hand grabbed Spencer’s, warm and firm, and dragged him back into the impromptu dancefloor. Spencer wiggled and whined and threatened to throw up, and all that earned him was a laugh and a steady grip on his wrist that shifted to his waist as Ethan taught him to salsa. And he _did it._

“Hey, I’m dancing!” he laughed, two drinks later and five songs, and he thought they might have missed midnight.

“Any idiot can dance,” Ethan told him with a roll of his eyes, pausing to drink juice and wipe sweat from his eyes. “And you’re not an idiot, Spence.”

Spencer flushed. Heart thumping and head spinning, he was drunk but still very cognizant. And he knew what this night meant.

He’d done it.

Sober a year. Almost. A few mess ups, here and there, but… it was _close_.

They both looked outside and caught the tail end of a distant _boom_. They’d missed the fireworks. It didn’t _really_ seem to matter. Mambo No. 5 started up with an excited _ladies and gentleman_ and they both groaned before joining in with shouts of laughter.

Ethan dragged him close and dragged him around and Spencer stumbled over his own feet and hit the wall with a yelp and defensive manoeuvres that mostly consisted of him slapping the wall with his palm and then falling over. Pulling him upright, Ethan was laughing helplessly, cheeks red, mouth wide, and Spencer _was_ an idiot.

He kissed him. Not a drunk kiss, sloppy and reckless. No. Maybe if it had been _that_ kind of kiss it wouldn’t have been as mortifying.

He kissed him for the sake of kissing, with soft lips and closed eyes and the barely withdrawn intake of breath. Hands to his side and skin burning, it was awkward and stupid and flavoured with mango orange.

Ethan froze. Spencer’s eyes were shut, but he felt him go rigid, felt him take a beat to try to work out what was going on, and then he felt him give in. Just the tiniest bit. The simplest return of pressure on the point where their lips met, and then a rough hand came up and curled around his jaw and pulled him away.

“No, Spencer,” Ethan said quietly, despite the radio now shouting about dogs to a raucous beat. “Just… no. I’m not _that_ to you. And you’re drunk.”

“Not that drunk,” Spencer whispered, because it was stupid but he was terrified now that he’d broken something.

“Drunk enough. You’re lonely.” Spencer had his eyes open as Ethan said this, so he could see the way his friend’s face crumpled a little at the words. “Lonely and drunk and scared of being alone. And I’m not… I can’t be that. Not for you. I’m not _sorry_ for that, but I do need you to understand.”

Spencer took a breath and tried to say “I’m sorry,” but what he said, in a bubble of words that were wine-drenched and flavoured with regret, was, “But I love you.” And then they both stood there, looking at each other, and Spencer hated himself because Ethan would leave now he knew Spencer would stoop to begging to make his secluded brain stop curling in on itself and clinging to even the slightest shred of affection.

Ethan looked down at his shoes. And then he stepped forward, closing the wary distance between them, and pulled Spencer into a hug that was tight and warm and somehow precious.

“I know,” he said into Spencer’s hair, and Spencer tried to frantically remember how to respond to being hugged. He couldn’t. He didn’t _know_. He ended up awkwardly wrapping his arms around Ethan’s waist, burying his face into the soft blue lining of his dressing gown, and trying not to shudder as his eyes burned and spilled and threatened to undo him. “I know, man. But you’re a kid… you’re a kid who’s been so, _so_ hurt before and I don’t think you know that you don’t need _sex_ to love someone… what we have? _That’s_ love. Friends can love too, Spencer, and you know we do otherwise you’d still be floating in that fountain.”

Spencer was quiet. He felt small and silly and stupid and _young_. And he didn’t know what to think; all he knew was his heart hurt and his head hurt with it and he didn’t know what to do with any of it.

“I’m sorry,” he finally managed, twenty minutes after midnight and two years too late.

“Don’t be,” Ethan grunted, letting him go finally. “Least we both got a New Year’s kiss, right?”

Sniffing wetly, Spencer reached for his mug and found Ethan’s glass shoved into his hand, sipping at the sweet juice and being thankful for it instead of the heady wine. “Some hold the superstition that failing to kiss at midnight on New Year’s Eve ensures a year of loneliness,” he mumbled, and looked up to find Ethan watching him closely.

“Well, there you go.” Ethan smiled and his cheeks were pink, his eyes serious. “You’ve saved my ass from being alone. And, who knows, maybe you’ll finally find someone more fun to hang around than a man married to his keyboard.”

“Doubt it,” Spencer said, sitting down and watched Ethan mute the radio and pull the offending instrument out instead. Head lolling on his knees, he knew he’d probably sleep soon, despite the shame still keeping him awake right now. He’d miscalculated. He didn’t really know how he felt about miscalculating yet. It would probably hit him in the morning, along with a headache.

“New millennium, new beginning.” Ethan flicked the keys and leaned back against the couch. “We’re going to do better, kid. You’ll see.” He began to play, to sing. The lyrics were quiet and soft and wound around Spencer and tugged him down.

Spencer was asleep before the first _when everything’s meant to be broken_ had faded.


	17. Psychoactive, Reprise

He fell.

“Oh god, no, Spencer, _no_ ,” Ethan said from far away and long ago, and Spencer stared blankly up and past him and thought of the descent. All of them, every descent, going down. The descent of a plane onto a bumpy runway, what if it just kept descending? Through the tarmac, into the earth, in flames and fire and falling and dying and— “Not again, how much did you _take_? Why, buddy, why? We were doing so well!”

“Three,” Spencer told him. Three months to fall, three days to fall. Three months leading to those three days, becoming the Judas to the one person he said he’d never betray. Father, son, the Holy Ghost. The atomic number of lithium. The number of hours it had taken to go from loved to despised, as they cajoled and begged and eventually told his mother exactly what he planned to do as soon as he turned eighteen.

“Three what?” Ethan asked, and then left. Quiet. Maybe. Maybe it was Spencer who left.

He intended to leave.

But fingers grabbed his arm, restraints, dragging him up and he opened his eyes and didn’t struggle. Green eyes. He was beginning to feel like those eyes were everything he wanted to flee from. Green envy, jealousy, spite. A vicious, subliminal colour. Deadly. Seeping.

_You were **clean**._

He sounded scared. Spencer was sorry. The part of him that was able was sorry, anyway. The other part was quietly quantifying physiological processes and whispering _oops._

So he said, “Usual amount,” and reclosed his eyes. Usual. Everything usual about this. Stoned Spencer, falling again, fleeing again, fucking up again. Final time. Stop. _Stop_.

“I’m calling an ambulance.”

_Don’t._

“Usual amount, you fucking _tool,_ you’ve been clean for a year! Spence. Spence! Look at me, _please_ —”

The phone in Ethan’s hand was yelling, shouting, angry vicious shrills of noise that cut through the drifting nothingness of the nothing life Spencer was living, and he managed to roll over and watch as Ethan moved in wobbly half-motion and answered the phone with a sharp, “Not now—” with his sun-bright eyes locked on Spencer. And then he wavered. Time skipped. He was going to call them, the men to take him away, put him with his mother, lock him to rot.

Spencer stood and he walked and he kept walking down and down and down—descending again, another way to fall—and found somewhere quiet to be nothing at all, away from green eyes and biting hands. One last. One last thing, one last person he’d hurt. Phone in his hand, he dialled from memory and listened to the condemnation: _Yeah, this is Sean Hotchner. I don’t owe you money, fuck off. Unless I do owe you money. In which case, also fuck off. Or leave a message._

He curled up small in the darkest place and waited for absolution.


	18. Alcyone, End

_Hey, baby. Long time no see._

_Spencer? What’s wrong with you? Oh fuck. Kyle, Kyle—help!_

_Not in here. Move him outside and make the call. We don’t need them in here._

“My mom isn’t well,” Spencer practised saying to his bedroom mirror. “I need help.” But when it came down to it, when the counsellors and teachers and therapists pulled him aside and said, “What’s wrong, Spencer?” he never quite had the courage to say. Except once. Just once. Because Aaron wouldn’t take him away.

“My mom isn’t well,” he told Aaron quietly, as a storm raged outside their little fort. Night time was around them. They shouldn’t be here. Spencer was _glad_ to be here. There was something about the night that made the little things seem more but brought the big things down to size. You could say things during the night that you could never say during the day.

Aaron looked at him, dark eyes sad under his choppily uneven bangs. His fingers traced the chain-link fence that swayed and skipped under the weight of their bodies as they looked down into the dark depths of the quarry’s descent; _clink clink_ went the links together as the rain lashed outside. Small things, made big. Spencer wondered where his beetle was.

“My dad isn’t well either,” Aaron said finally, closing those dark eyes and letting his head fall back. “Something’s wrong with him. I’m scared it’s in me too.”

Spencer swallowed. He knew what was wrong with Aaron’s dad. Rough hands and little heart.

“You’ve got nothing of him in you,” he said savagely, because Aaron could never be small or rough. Despite, scientifically, knowing that there was plenty of the elder Hotchner in the younger, just as there was enough Diana in Spencer to make him shiver.

_Doomed_ said the night to them both, but Spencer figured if anyone would fight fate, it’d be Aaron.

_Can you tell us your name? Can you feel me squeezing your hand?_

_No ID. Who called it in?_

_Dispatch didn’t say._

“This does not taste as good as I remember,” said Aaron, pulling a face at the candy they’d been swapping on the stoop of his New York City apartment building. Around them, the city bustled. Dingier and greyer than Vegas, the people weren’t as haphazard, a little more cautious in their actions. Spencer was _fascinated._ He ate another piece of candy, remembered tasting it the first time. Their fingers brushed in the bag. Sticky and warm and Aaron slipped his index finger over Spencer’s and used the bag as cover to trace a wandering line across the bump of his knuckle.

“Nostalgia,” Spencer explained, and rubbed at his sugary teeth with his tongue. Aaron brushed icing sugar from his pants, standing and pulling Spencer up with him as the shade on their stoop receded, leaving them in the summer sun. “You’re idealizing the memory of the candy from when you were a child, seeing them as far tastier than they actually are.”

Aaron laughed, holding the door open to the stairwell as they shirked the elevator and made their slow way up the cool cement, languishing in the heat of holidays. Spencer had already counted the days until this would be over and dreaded the descending numerals. “You’re more of an idealist than I am,” he teased, and caught Spencer by the wrist, dragging him close. “You’ve got candy brain.”

“What does that even _mean_?” Spencer protested, but then they were kissing and his back was against the wall and _oh_. This. This was…

Everything.

“See,” Aaron said, breaking away and panting slightly, his cheeks pink and dark eyes glowing. His tongue flickered over lips, tasting them. Spencer did the same and felt giddy. “You taste like sugar. Candy brain. Almost diabetic.”

“That’s just the residual sucrose,” Spencer protested breathlessly, but Aaron was walking away and he had to follow, drawn by some impossible tether between the two of them. Upstairs lay Aaron and Sean’s apartment that felt unreal, dreamlike, vivid; and with it, the dark bedroom, the camp bed that lay empty, a warm back against his chest and wandering hands and wide-eyed exploration. It was new and huge and thrilling and _real_.

How could he idealize what was already fantastic?

_Pinpoint pupils, not responding to light._

_Patient unresponsive, sternal rub ineffective._

“My mom is sick,” he said and didn’t slur at all. His tolerance levels were rising. Weirdly, he felt a measure of pride in this, despite not really being responsible for his body’s ability to metabolize alcohol. “I’m scared… I’m scared I’ll become her. Not who I am… _less_.”

“Ah, Spence.” Glasses clinked and the couch sagged next to him. Spencer watched the amber liquid refill his cup, rising rising rising until it brushed the centre line. “You’ll never be less than who you are. You are a bright, intelligent young man—you need to remember that. And your potential is _limitless_.”

“Thanks, Professor,” Spencer managed, and brushed his fingers over the envelope in his pocket. He couldn’t wait to go home, to read Aaron’s latest letter. Sometimes it felt like they were the only social contact he had, outside of this. And this was study, tutoring. Not dull, not ever, but it didn’t really count as _socializing_.

Connors laughed, a deep rumble that reminded Spencer of his dad, before that had all gone wrong. But William had been _intimidated_ by Spencer’s mind. Connors was fascinated by it. But not just by his mind—there’d been plenty of people simply interested in his mind before.

Connors was interested in _him_. As a person.

Like he was more than just a brain.

“Please,” the man said with a warm smile. “It’s Ross. Don’t you think we’ve been working together long enough for first names? Now, put your books aside. You need to relax as well as study, or even your brain will burn out. Tell me about Aaron.”

“I—” Spencer began.

_I can't get a line in, going for an IO._


	19. March 3rd

**1998**

 

Voicemail received: 03/03/1998 at 01:28

From: S. Reid

Duration: 00:03:31

 

Voicemail received: 03/03/1998 at 01:35

From: S. Reid

Duration: 00:02:01

 

Voicemail received: 03/03/1998 at 01:43

From: S. Reid

Duration: 00:05:32

 

Spence,

Hey. RA told me to leave this on your door. Got a bunch of calls from your mom freaking out about some messages you left her? She’s panicking, man. You’re not answering, so give her a call when you get back to your room and see this, yeah?

Cheers, Adam

 

**To:** dr.r.connors7732@faculty.american.edu

**From:** ajo2664@student.american.edu

**Subject:** Spencer Reid

**Body:**

 

Hey Prof,

Somethings up with the kid you tutor. His mom’s been hammering us all day with calls and we can’t get him to open the door. Someone said he’s close with you and to shoot you an email so was wondering if you could talk to the guy and see if he’s alright. Thanks man

_03/03/1998 17:55_

 

**To:** ajo2664@student.american.edu

**From:** dr.r.connors7732@faculty.american.edu

**Subject:** re: Spencer Reid

**Body:**

 

Thank you. I’ll see to it that he’s taken care of. Please see enclosed attachment about the correct formalities when contacting staff via email. Online discourse does not allow for informality.

_03/03/1998 18:10_

 

**2000**

 

**United Care Medical Centre – Clinical Data Entry**

**Admitted:** 03/03/2000 _17:37_

**Name:** Unidentified

**Age:** Unknown

**Bed:** 436

**Reason for Admission:** Suspected OD. Identity unknown. Patient unresponsive on scene.

**Consultant:** Dr. Cara Conroy

**Admission Notes:** male, Caucasian, brown hair, brown eyes, slim build. Attempts being made to locate family.

 

**9+ MISSED CALLS: ETHAN**

**FROM: ETHAN**

**WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU**

**FROM: ETHAN**

**SERIOUSLY SPENCE PLEASE WHERE ARE YOU YOU NEED HELP**

**FROM: ETHAN**

**I DONT KNOW WHAT TO DO SPENCE PLEASE**

**FROM: ETHAN**

**I CANT KEEP LOOKING. GRAM HAD A STROKE. DONT DIE. I NEED TO GO.**

**FROM: ETHAN**

**IM SORRY**


	20. Rock Bottom

The buprenorphine was tapering. Spencer swallowed, huddled his sweater close to his chest, and stared out at the grey-washed world outside. Tremors worked up his arms, his gut cramped, nausea bubbled thick and cloying in his throat. And, between the tempo galloping in his head, voices swam in frantic shoals of chatter.

The nurses. Their condemnation. Their kindnesses. Their relief when he’d blinked awake, feeling like he’d died and been dragged back to life. “What’s your name?”

_Spencer Reid_.

The doctors. Their cool disregard. He deserved it.

And nothing else. “Can I have a phone?” he’d asked once, once they’d finally stopped inducing vomiting and his body had stalled into a stuttering kind of half-rest. And he’d dialled a number he’d known from heart and found no one on the other end.

Ethan was gone, his cell turned off, and it was still less than Spencer deserved. After this ultimate fuck-up.

Spencer didn’t ask why, because he figured he’d finally failed his friend beyond redemption.

They’d stabilized him. Then they’d released him. And here he stood, three days later, alone in the hospital foyer, the nurses who’d wheeled him down here already returning to their other patients. The ones who weren’t there because they were _just another_ _junkie_. And he’d proven that, hadn’t he? One set-back, no matter how monumental, and he’d tumbled gleefully to his doom.

The rain fell outside. He stood in the clothes he’d almost died in, now stiff and stinking of hospital detergent, and his pockets were empty except for a prescription for something to ease the withdrawal; a prescription he couldn’t afford to fill. No cell. No wallet. Almost two hours away on foot from his apartment. The apartment he didn’t have keys to. The apartment where his friend sat distancing himself, ready to make the final slice to end the tentative thing they still had that was good.

The withdrawal reared. And he walked out of the doors and into the sleeting rain.

Rock bottom.

 

* * *

 

“Sorry,” the building manager said, and didn’t look sorry at all. “Don’t recognise you. Not letting you in without someone vouching for you. Regulations, you know, now fuck off.”

Spencer stared. “But—” he began, and the door slammed. “—can I borrow a… oh,” he said to the silent door. Two floors up, his apartment mocked him. Locked against him with no one inside and no way of entering.

His stomach growled. He felt sick.

He leaned against the door and closed his eyes against the tears threatening, shaking shaking shaking now and knowing the withdrawal was written all over his skin, his face, his body. Nothing but a junkie in his battered clothes and fucked up mannerisms.

And he was locked out.

“I don’t _know_ anyone,” he breathed into the wood of the door, and then pulled away and left the surface damp.

He left. He wasn’t going to huddle on the stoop and wait for Ethan—who had apparently not been home for days, not since Spencer’s admission to ER—and Spencer didn’t bank on him coming home anytime soon. Maybe he’d fled this fucked up narrative. Smart. Spencer wished he could flee too.

Outside, the rain was turning into sleet that was sharp and promising that it would become ice and snow before morning. The afternoon was hidden by thick black clouds. It’d be night hours before sunset, the storm settling down. No lightning or thunder or anything exciting, just a bone deep cold that sunk into the soaked clothes that Spencer was wearing. Ratty sneakers, jeans that were thin from too-many-washes, and a light jacket. He wasn’t dressed for this weather.

He was freezing, hungry, sick, and utterly, utterly broken. A family walking up the street with umbrellas pulled low over their two little girls crossed the road when they saw him.

Seeing that, Spencer slunk away. A hound being kicked away from the table, he walked and walked and walked until he found a bar that looked seedy enough that they’d let him in, only to remember he didn’t have _any_ kind of ID.

“I’m so fucked,” Spencer told the rivets of water gurgling slowly into a storm drain, shaking wet hair out of his eyes. Everything was wet, dripping, frozen. Mouth numb enough that his words were slurred, nose running. He ached. Everything ached.

And his brain, the pride of so many others before him who’d thought he could do _so_ much better, gave him only one option.

“Oh shit, it’s the kid,” Clary said as soon as she opened her door to find him standing there. A cigarette hung from her mouth and she was dressed unlike he’d ever seen her before. Warm sweatpants, an oversized men’s tee… she looked cosy and _normal_ , with her hair damp from a shower and brushed back untidily behind her ears. Almost vulnerable. “Thought you died.”

Her tone was callous, her words sharp, but she stepped back to let him in and when he moved past her, she caught his arm and brushed a hand over his cheek. “Cold,” she noted, and he felt his eyes beginning to burn again. “You’re frozen. They fix you up good?”

He blinked. “How did you know?” he rasped, and coughed. “Know I was… sick?” Another cough. He shuddered.

Her eyes wandered over him, blue and red and washed out by the years. He wondered how old she was. It was impossible to tell under the hard eyes and ghoulish skin left by too many broken years. “I called it in,” she said finally, and dropped her arm. “You here for a hit?”

_Yes._

“I’m locked out,” he said instead, and looked at his shoes. He couldn’t. He shouldn’t. He’d almost _died_. But something in his fucked up brain laughed coldly at the thought and snarled _try harder_. “Of my apartment. I don’t have my phone or my wallet or my keys and—” To his horror, his words began to hitch, his eyes spilling over. Fuck.

Clary swallowed. She wasn’t a kind woman. She’d never been kind. He was a customer, always, and occasionally a willing body. A willing body who, he was pretty sure, she kept allowing in her bed because he was small and slight and kind, even when stoned. “What do you want?” she hissed, her blue eyes frozen. Learned hate glimmered. A male in her home; beyond two reasons, she wasn’t comfortable with it.

Guilt slammed home at that discomfort.

“Nothing,” he mumbled, and turned to shuffle to the door. He’d dripped on her rank carpet. Left a trail of dark splatters from his soggy shoes. When he reached for the door, she pushed her hand against it and held it shut.

“A bath,” she said softly. “Hot bath. Something to eat. You can call someone using my phone. But you owe me, got it? You owe me.”

“Thank you,” said Spencer, because what else could he say?

 

* * *

 

Ethan finally answered. Spencer almost wished he hadn’t when he heard the hollow misery of his friend’s voice, the blank acceptance.

“You’re alive,” Ethan said hoarsely over the crackly line. And that was it. “Where are you?”

“A friend’s,” Spencer replied, huddling against the peeling wallpaper. Clary was moving in the bedroom behind him. There was a half-hearted bed made up on the couch. He was exhausted, tired, sick at heart. He wanted to go home and he hated himself for not being able to say _I’m sorry_ or _are you okay_ because his friend sounded _hurting_ and it was all his fault. “Um. Where are you?”

“Truck stop.” Ethan grunted, and then Spencer heard chatter in the background. “Be home in about five hours. Text me the address and I’ll pick you up.”

“Okay,” Spencer said, and then he found his courage and tried, “Eth—”

He was talking to a dial-tone.

“You get your friend?” Clary asked when he walked past her room, and he turned and found her wearing nothing but an open robe and the same brittle smile she’d worn when she’d first found out his age.

“Yes,” Spencer said, looking determinedly at her face. “He’s gonna be a few hours. You mind if I sleep on your couch? I’m just… tired.” And everything else.

“I do,” she replied, and turned the brittle smile into something more business-like. His gut sank, right as his arm set up a vicious itch that burned right up into his brain. “Warmer in here. I’m lonely, kid, and you look like you need it.”

The robe hung limp, like a rag left by a careless cleaning lady. He looked down now, at what was freely offered, and almost involuntarily stepped forward to trace a line of bruises along her pelvic bone. Blurred into a dark-purple line now, he knew they had been left by hateful fingers digging deep. Cruel. It was the work of a heartbeat to slide the robe back from her shoulder, exposing pale skin that was yellowed in the cheap light, and the patchwork of black and blue across it. She shivered as his fingers traced them.

He’d never bruised her. What they did was cold and unfeeling and they’d never been sober for it, but he’d never hurt her. Anger hummed through the numb nothingness.

“Spence, please,” she murmured, and she’d never called him his name before either. “You. You’re… good. To me. And I promise, I won’t even get the shit out. We can be sober. I just… thought you were dying, okay. I thought you were dying and I left you there and then—”

Her turn to cry except her cry was simply a hitch of her chest and a snick in her voice. No tears spilled. He doubted she had any less to cry.

If this was being adult, he hated every minute of it.

“You don’t need to liv—” he started, some younger and more bright-eyed part of himself, and she stopped him with a vicious finger dug right into the scabby track-mark on his arm.

“Don’t patronize me,” she hissed. “You’re as screwed up as I am, Spencer, just as screwed up. Probably more. Least I never fucked a hooker for an ounce. Now either get in here and fuck me, or piss off to the couch to wait for your boy. What’s it gonna be?”

He followed her blindly into the bedroom. He knew at least one part of what she’d said was a lie.

They’d never fucked sober, and he doubted that would start today. Especially not as he lay on his back with her astride him ( _position of power to her, she’s controlling this_ ), his fingers gentle as he counted every bruise.

The coke helped him focus on them and it helped him focus on something else as well; there was no coming back from this.

 

* * *

 

“You stink of sex,” Ethan said when Spencer slid silently into the passenger seat. Spencer sniffed, and then froze when he recognised what _else_ he could smell. “Are you high?”

“I took a little.” Spencer wasn’t going to lie to him, not even when he saw Ethan’s knuckles turn white around their grip on the wheel. And his friend was rigid, his expression immobile. He didn’t look like anyone Spencer had known him to be before. “I’m sor—”

“Don’t apologise if you don’t fucking mean it,” Ethan spat, and almost skidded the wheels out on the slick road as he pulled out roughly. “How long were you out of the hospital before you shot up again? An hour? Two?”

“I’m sorry,” Spencer said despite that, shrinking small. “I—”

“Don’t give a fucking _shit_ about other people, you fucking _wanker_.” Ethan’s voice turned thin and snapped, his gaze slashing around to land on Spencer, who was frozen under it. “You’re a selfish little _fuck_ and you were _dying_ , Spencer, you were fucking _dying_ and you ran away and _made me leave you._ ”

Silence.

“I’m so—”

Ethan growled. Spencer choked it back. They drove in that icy, hellish quiet until Ethan pulled the car into the parking bay and killed the motor. It made harsh ticking noises as it cooled, and Spencer couldn’t move.

He felt rather than saw Ethan’s head turn to him, probably confused by the silence. A huff. A thump as his friend threw himself back into his seat.

“Why aren’t you saying anything?”

Spencer tried. “I didn’t think you’d—”

And there it was again. The growl, cutting him off. How was he supposed to say _anything_ with Ethan making _that_ noise! “Don’t,” Ethan hissed, cold and deadly, swinging to face him. Spencer looked at him. Really looked at him. At the bloodshot eyes and the dark lips stark against his white skin. Unbrushed hair. If Spencer stank, Ethan wasn’t much better. Old sweat and stale clothes, and his breathe was…

Condemning.

“Don’t sit there and say you didn’t believe I’d notice or care or be _scared_ ,” Ethan continued, and now he was shaking. Shaking helplessly and Spencer couldn’t think past the horror of watching someone he loved fall apart. “Because I did, Spencer, I goddamn did and I drove away and I drove and I fucking _cried_ while I drove because I thought I’d left you to _die_. And, worse, fucking _worse,_ I thought you _wanted that._ To die. Is that it? Is it? You’re done so you’re _quitting_?”

Fingers around his jacket collar, tugging tight and pulling him closer to the other man. A rabbit in a trap, Spencer went limp and blank-eyed and let himself be shaken. Completely docile. He knew how to respond when they got handsy.

As though he’d seen this thought process dart across Spencer’s face, Ethan let go and looked sick. White skin flushing greenish.

“You’ve been drinking,” Spencer said finally, slowly responding. “This isn’t just me, is it? You wouldn’t start drinking again because of just me, or you’d have fallen off the wagon months ago. What’s happened? Are you okay?”

Ethan looked at him. Really looked at him. Spencer winced away from that regard, but it was too late; disgust crossed his friend’s face as he finally saw Spencer for what he was. Contemptible.

“Damn you, Spencer Reid,” Ethan said coldly, and opened the car door to let in a burst of bitter air. “Damn you to hell.”

The door slammed shut and Spencer was alone, breathing raggedly with the scent of whiskey sharp on his tongue.

He deserved this.


	21. Epistolary, 2000

> Dr. Reid
> 
> It is with great disheartenment that I am finding myself in the position of recommending your removal from your doctorate program. This will also result in the dismissal of your teaching privileges within the college. Please see me immediately so we may discuss this moving forward; your mind is incredible, Spencer. If it can be retained—perhaps after a deferral of study instead of a dismissal, I am eager to discuss how that can be so.
> 
> Regards, Dr. Kale.

 

* * *

 

**April 14** ** th ** **–** _He finally told me what happened. Haemorrhagic stroke. His gram is alive—she’s alive. I feared the worst when he told me, and it was only when he was so intoxicated that he couldn’t be sure it was me he was talking to that he admitted it. Why would he hide this? Why would he deal with this alone? She’s alive, she’s recovering… his sister kicked him out because he was drunk when he should have been there with her. I think… I think that may have been my fault. He thought I was dead. And now he isolates himself from his family because I wasn’t dead, and he failed them despite that. It’s my fault. And I need to make up for that._

**April 15** ** th ** **–** _I haven’t missed a day since he picked me up from Clary’s. I know it won’t last. But right now, I’m needed. And I’ve always been better at being strong for other people. Not like Aaron. His strength was intrinsic._

**April 16** ** th ** **–** _Perversely, I think I might be an easier person to devote care to. Ethan is a volatile drunk. If he’s not rancorous, he’s listless. I prefer him angry. He lost his job. We’re struggling. I don’t know what to do. Fiona won’t answer my calls. Was my descent this sudden?_

**April 17** ** th ** **–** _Once, weeks ago, he came home staggering. I woke to him almost tripping over me in my bed. Curious, I asked him why. Drunk, he answered. By long habit, he checks on me. Every night, before he sleeps, he checks on me. I’ve never woken to this? He’s like a cat, despite how lightly I sleep… I think it says something about my level of trust in him that I don’t wake to his poking his head into my room. I’m a little disconcerted by this, as well as dismayed. Because this shows that I trust him absolutely, but he fell that night and it was easier to allow him to sleep in my bed than to move him. He slept deeply and I slept beside him and I woke with his arm over my stomach. He… woke and grew angry. The trust, it seems, does not extend both ways. It’s not the first time I’ve been accused of such conduct…_

**April 18** ** th ** **–** _I have a plan._

 

* * *

 

**DC Gas and Electric**

**_Your leading energy company_ **

_Issue date: 24_ _ th _ _May 2000_

 

Ethan Coiro

**[Address smudged and unreadable]**

 

**Due Amount:** $258.21

**Due Date:** 23rd April, 2000

 

**PAST DUE.**

**IF PAYMENT ISN’T RECEIVED SOON, SERVICES MAY BE INTERRUPTED.**

 

* * *

 

**To: Clary**

**May I ask a favour? It’s Spencer Reid.**

 

**From: Clary**

**Got new phne didja? Finally. Wut u want?**

 

**To: Clary**

**I need you sober.**

 

**From: Clary**

**Dnt knw whre u go getting all demanding. Fck off.**

 

**To: Clary**

**Please**

**To: Clary**

**I’ll pay you. I have some money.**

 

**From: Clary**

**Hrd bout that. U gnna get in trouble again.**

 

**To: Clary**

**Not from Hutchins. Please. Anything in return.**

 

**From: Clary**

**Anything huh? ;)**

 

**To: Clary**

**Anything.**

 

* * *

 

**To: Ethan**

**Want to go out for dinner? There’s nothing but beans and wishes in our cupboards right now. My shout.**

**To: Ethan**

**When I say my shout, I mean my moderately raised voice. $10 limit. Perhaps a Happy Meal each.**

 

**From: Ethan**

**Cn’t drive. Been drinking. We’l order in.**

 

**To: Ethan**

**Well, shower and drink some water and I’ll pick you up. Well, rather, I’ll come home and then we’ll both go in your car. Which I’ll drive**

 

**From: Ethan**

**Wut**

 

**To: Ethan**

**: )**

**To: Ethan**

**I got my license!**

 

**From: Ethan**

**How? What? Who taught you to drive?**

**From: Ethan**

**Wait, who went there wit you? You need sometone with you over 21**

 

**To: Ethan**

**I already knew how to drive.**

**To: Ethan**

**And no one. Are you gonna celebrate with me?**

**To: Ethan**

**Eth?**

 

**From: Ethan**

**Fucking Clary. U idiot. U using again?**

 

**To: Ethan**

**I’m sober. I’m almost home. We’ll talk then.**

 

**From: Ethan**

**U bring her home with you and Ill throw you both out.**

 

* * *

 

**To: UNKNOWN NUMBER**

**Stay the fuck away from Spencer**

 

**From: UNKNOWN NUMBER**

**Sweetie, hes a grown man. how r u gnna stop him?**

**From: UNKNOWN NUMBER**

**Bsides, I no about his lttle crush. He dos tell me things. How sweet. Like a limp dick like u culd give him anything.**

 

**To: UNKNOWN NUMBER**

**Come near us again and see what I do.**

 

**From: UNKNOWN NUMBER**

**Stay sober 4 5 min nd I might b worried.**

 

* * *

 

**From: Ethan**

**Powers out.**

 

**To: Ethan**

**That’s what happens when you don’t pay the bills.**

 

**From: Ethan**

**Funny. What do we do?**

 

**To: Ethan**

**I’ll busk for candles. We can cook beans over them. One bean at a time.**

 

**From: Ethan**

**How romantic.**

 

* * *

 

> _Dr. Reid,_
> 
> _A short missive to ask that you do contact us at your immediate convenience. Your continued refusal of communication with Diana has her greatly distressed. It’s been almost six months now—her treatment would progress far easier if she was assured of your well-being._
> 
> _Regards, Dr. Berman._
> 
> _Bennington Sanatorium._

 

* * *

 

**From: Ethan**

**Powers back on?**

 

**To: Ethan**

**That’s what happens when you DO pay the bills.**

**To: Ethan**

**:3**

 

**From: Ethan**

**Who taught you to be so fucking mouthy. Also what the fuck is that**

 

**To: Ethan**

**It’s a cat face. It denotes playful cheekiness. I’m being frisky**

 

**From: Ethan**

**It looks like a scrotum. Where did u get money?**

 

**To: Ethan**

**It does not!**

**To: Ethan**

**Mom**

 

**From: Ethan**

**Chinballs :3**

 

**To: Ethan**

**I hate you**

 

* * *

 

**August 7** ** th ** **–** _I let Ethan glimpse this over my shoulder this evening as I paged through it. I let him see that every entry is full, even if he can’t see the details. He won’t read it closely. And I’m free to admit that that’s a lie. But I’m functional, and I’m hiding it; what more does he want from me? I have a regular, if haphazard income. Unfortunately, I may need to reconsider this income. My face is becoming known at my regular destinations, and news travels fast of big winners._

 

* * *

 

**August 15** ** th ** **–** _Gram is doing well. We finally visited her this weekend, the two of us. Fiona is terse with Ethan but warm with me. Specky has stuck. Ethan spent the whole weekend sober. That seems to have continued. He is… tired. Quiet. I can’t help but think of what his gram said—that she would love to hear him sing again. So would I. But we’re doing better._

**August 16** ** th ** **–** _Spoke too soon._

 

* * *

 

**From: Clary**

**Got sumthin of urs**

 

**To: Clary**

**Pardon?**

 

**From: Clary**

**Found him pukin in a bin. Hes nt happy to c me. Managed 2 get him inside VU, doormn nt happy either. Cum get him. Hes nappin.**

 

**To: Clary**

**Ethan!?**

**To: Ethan**

**Are you okay? Where are you?**

**To: Ethan**

**Guess it’s my turn to carry you home, huh?**

 

* * *

 

**From: Ethan**

**Sorry about last night**

 

**To: Ethan**

**It’s okay.**

 

* * *

 

**V** elvet **U** nderground

**E** lliot **K** yle

_Bar Manager                                          Spencer,_

202-555-0169                          _Mutual acquaintance pointed you out to me. I think we can do business._

_Call me._

 

* * *

 

**September 15** ** th ** **–**

**September 16** ** th ** **–**

**September 17** ** th ** **–**

**September 18** ** th ** **–** _I miss music._


	22. October, 2000

Ethan was packed and nervous, trying to hide it by scrubbing the kitchen. Spencer sat on the table with his legs crossed, watching sympathetically as the poor countertops underwent the most thorough clean they’d ever experienced.

“Wow, who knew they were white,” Ethan commented, picking up the rag that was now more dirt than blue, and Spencer winced and lifted his hands from the table surface. “We should clean more.”

“I’m never eating here again,” Spencer said morosely. Who knew how many pathogens he’d already consumed, further skewing the race against antibiotic-resistant super-bacteria in favour of the bacteria. Humanity would be _decimated_ , and it would entirely be the fault of their kitchen.

Ethan laughed, the noise shrill. On the table, next to Spencer’s knee, his cell was silent. His eyes skittered to it. Then they skittered to the cupboard where Spencer knew there was half a bottle of bourbon waiting.

“Eth…” he said quietly, and Ethan swung around and scowled fiercely at him. “It’s gonna be okay. Fi asked you to go. She _wants_ you there.”

“She just wants me there to help move Gram’s room into the downstairs bedroom,” Ethan grumbled. “Not from any _love_.”

Spencer didn’t reply, because he wasn’t exactly the poster boy of ‘reuniting estranged families’. And this was _good_ , despite Ethan’s anxiety. A week for him to slowly slip back into his gram and sister’s lives as they brought Gram home from the hospital… it would be _good_.

If a tiny part of Spencer’s mind, the shrewd, cunning part, was whispering that it also gave Spencer the apartment to himself, well…

He was finding that he wasn’t as kind as Ethan. Ethan had patiently put up with Spencer’s bullshit for the past two years. In contrast, after only a few months of Ethan getting sober, getting drunk, breaking down, Spencer was exhausted and miserable and desperate to feel anything but wary.

“You can do this,” he said with a false cheer he knew Ethan wasn’t clear-headed enough to see through, and silently he counted down the hours until he was at work and out of his roommate’s eye. “You told them I’m taking your shift?”

“Hmm?” Ethan looked up at him. Twitchy. Against the wall, his guitar suitcase was packed and ready. Waiting for the go-ahead from Fi before beginning the long drive. “Yeah. They weren’t pleased. Apparently, you’re a nightmare on bar.”

The job was new. A tentative thing that had turned out to be nightmarishly seductive to the both of them. With Ethan working bar and Spence, upstairs, in the back rooms and offices that they kept closed to the public…

Ethan had done fantastically at facing his demons with a smile and cheerful, _pick your poison_ , strangely at home behind the bar in his purple shirt and jaunty bow-tie.

Spencer wasn’t doing so well. But, what he was doing, was being so astoundingly functional that not even Ethan had noticed he hadn’t stop failing, he was just being smarter about it.

And that was the difference, wasn’t it? The Spencer of before was getting high because he couldn’t bear to be a sober, a destructively nightmarish plunge into self-destruction. The Spencer of now? He was calculating and cold, careful to ensure he only took _just a bit_ , never enough to hint, hiding his vices carefully so he could continue helping his friend back upright again.

It was hypocritical. It was revolting.

He was _good_ at it.

But it was exhausting and harrowing and it was with a quiet, cold clear-headedness that he finally waved at his friend’s retreating back and closed the door behind him. A week to himself. A week he didn’t have to be _careful_.

A week he could finally take enough to find that sweet spot, that spooling nothing.

A week of _Rhosgobel._

 

* * *

 

Bar work was exhausting but oddly stimulating. It was mechanical enough that Spencer could slip into an unconsciously mediative greet-serve pattern, despite knowing that he was pouring drinks wrong, spilling things, dropping glasses, greeting patrons with just _too_ much awkwardness in his smile. The music thumped louder as the night grated on and he skirted numerous attempts at picking him up, guy and girl, and just as many obnoxiously loud, “How old are _you_?”

“Twenty-two,” he lied with an easy smile, only suave when he was being false, and the man next to the girl who’d shouted it cocked an eyebrow. Spencer caught his eye—green eyes and dark hair, and something low and desirous jolted low in his belly—and then continued working.

Velvet was the kind of club that skirted trendy and cheap, and the clientele reflected that. The interior was nice, the patrons a weird mix between the rich who slipped right through and climbed the roped off stairways at the back of the establishment, and the college aged revellers on a budget who stuck to the drink-of-the-week menu and swarmed around the dancefloor. In the rare moment Spencer caught a moment to breathe, he watched this mass of humanity in all its facets, and wondered where he fit in.

Then the night was over and he slipped out to help clean, stragglers still hanging in the booths and tables. Not everyone would leave. Some had vanished back to the gambling rooms that operated behind the premises; some select few yet would have gone upstairs to the rooms that Spencer carefully skirted. He was employed to work the books, and he was good at that, but he was also sharply aware that Kyle hadn’t been shy about commenting on his appearance when hiring him, and he knew whatever they were hocking in those upper rooms wasn’t anything official or legal.

As he shook off a girl who clung to him and offered to remove his bowtie with her teeth and ducked the rope to vanish upstairs, he was wearily reminded that he should probably be grateful for all the illegal pots Elliot Kyle’s franchise had its fingers in. It certainly made a lovely mess of books that would take a team of illicit accountants to hide away.

Or one desperate mathematical genius.

His pay would be generous, if that was the amount he actually received. But once they removed the money he owed them for his mother’s care, removed another portion for the drugs they were careful to keep tantalizingly within reach, removed a little more for the money he’d borrowed to keep him and Ethan afloat…

He knew they were using his addictions to keep him tethered here. He’d used that against them to get Ethan hired too. It was… a mess. An absolute mess.

Three more hours of working the accounts and he could slip to the only room he visited of the upper rooms, find Ruben, find a hit, go home… they let him have coke when he working, just a line to let him focus if he whined enough, but he didn’t want to be manic and angry tonight. Something softer. Something kinder. Something that would edge him sweetly into the point where he could close his eyes and remember.

It would be fine. He’d have a little, and he’d go home. _Just one,_ he promised himself, and bent back over the line of data beneath his trembling fingers. _Just one…_

 

* * *

 

Stoned and only sometimes stupid, he was buzzing and the world buzzed with him. The good kind of buzz, the reason he’d fallen into this vault in the first place, and he hummed and purred all at once as he slipped his fingers down and traced lines of lightning with the tips through the curly weight against his thigh. A hot, warm mouth against the broken line of his pants and he moaned and rucked into that wet pressure, hard and hot all over as his brain fractured. Every breath felt like the first, long and slow and ruptured, and he moaned again because he could and watched in wonder as threads of silky hair slipped through his fingers.

“Not sucking you off with a condom,” said the deep voice against his crotch, and Spencer shivered and almost came just from the rumble of the vocalization.

“No condom, no sex,” he said absently, forgetting for a second everything except the hot-cold feeling of skin on skin as he released the silky soft hair and brought his hands down to trace lines of warm around a sharp angled face that bit and scratched at his fingertips. Any face, it could be, any. Ethan or Aaron or one of the countless other firm and fuckable bodies he’d imagined in his bed. “Come here.” He tugged the man up, any man, and slipped his arms around the slim body. The room around them was dark and lit strangely, quietly noisy. People moved. He ignored them. Irrelevant. Stats danced and he twisted away from them, happy to be normal and dull and thoughtless tonight. Not genius Spencer now, just a boy with nothing left to lose.

“It’s shit with a condom, come on,” the man whined, and Spencer hissed and huddled close, kissing at a bared throat and rubbing along the front of him. Wiggly and writhing and throbbing and flushed, he was alternating between madly horny and frantically lost in his desire to just hold the other man close, skimming a hand between their fronts and feeling his flagging erection as the drugs kicked in. “Ah, fuck. Told you not to molly up. Now what are we gonna do?”

“Can still get you off,” Spencer assured, and pushed forward with his knees so the man sunk down onto the booth behind them before he slipped on top. They kissed and the room pulsed with the press of their lips and the wet sound of them pushing together and pulling apart, nipping and biting and falling. Someone nearby whistled. A hand that wasn’t the man’s slid down his back, and he ignored it as he fumbled for the buckle between his splayed thighs. His brain was splintering, everything slowing and speeding up all at once. And then skin touched skin and he was gone, helpless, captivated. He might have promised, “I’ll be good to you,” and maybe the man said something gratifying in return, and then the night throbbed on and he fell with it, until he woke sticky and frustrated and half-aroused with a tell-tale stain on the front of his pants. The person cuddled close to him was silent, breathing deeply in sleep with his hand tucked possessively into Spencer’s waistband and one thumb hooked around his belt. Spencer blinked, stared about at the hazy dawn creeping through a painted-over window illuminating countless bodies similarly arranged, and then slipped out the man’s grasp and padded silently to the door.

He felt sober but the walls shifted cheekily around him, and when he found the bathroom and a sink that wasn’t too powder-sticky, the eyes staring back at him in the mirror were still blown, uneven. There was a bitemark on his throat, red and purple and it stung when he touched it. How long had he been here?

His back pocket hummed. It took three goes to fumble his cell out and squinted blearily at the screen.

**From: Ethan**

**What?**

What? Spencer frowned and managed to find the last sent message.

**Want you**

“Fuck,” he hissed, and closed his eyes as his body flushed hot and then cold and then hot again. It wasn’t Ethan. Not really—his feelings for his friend ran further than sex, and even his stupid psychoactive brain knew that. But there was a man back in that room with dark eyes and dark hair and a willing cock, and Spencer wasn’t kidding himself that he didn’t pick that type for a reason. Classic projection. A therapist’s dream. “You need help, Spencer Reid,” he told his reflection glumly, and then managed to type a reply.

**To: Ethan**

**Want you to come home*. TV is broken again. I’m bored.**

**From: Ethan**

**Ever thought of sleeping like a normal person?**

“Here you are,” said a honeyed voice, rough with the morning and deep as could be, and Spencer turned to find his friend from the night before watching him with one hip cocked against the doorframe and a baggie between his fingers. “Got somewhere to be?”

Spencer felt sick. “Yeah,” he lied, and slipped out the door. “Cya.”

If the man said goodbye, he didn’t catch it.

He showered until his skin was red and sore and then laid in his empty bed with his palm pressing down on the bite mark, and he didn’t sleep at all.

 

* * *

 

Restless and aching, he paced and he paced and he paced until he thought his skin was going to crawl from his body and slip away across the lonely floor. The apartment hissed at him, countless simmering voices, and he was too hot for his clothes, too cold to be naked, miserably wrapping his bathrobe around himself and occasionally making a sharp noise when the material slipped too close to his overstimulated body.

“MDMA is primary a presynaptic releasing agent of serotonin, norepinephrine, and dopamine,” he informed the empty apartment loudly. “Chemical cocktail designed to produce euphoria and it really only has a shelf-life of six hours before the body metabolizes it, which doesn’t bode well for me if I’m still anxious and restless however many hours between now and then, oh no, not really at all, and _stupid_ , stupid…”

But it wasn’t really the drug, was it? That was long gone.

He whirled and paced again, anxious and shaking with it. Too alone, too lonely, and he lunged for his cell and considered calling Ethan just to hear a friendly voice and then realized with a jolt of heat that he didn’t want to drag Ethan into what he was absolutely sure was a spiralling meltdown probably triggered by his erratic use of recreational drugs the past few months.

Not when he closed his eyes and thought of Ethan answering the phone, voice husky and humming and talking to his as he slipped a hand down his front, curling around himself, answering calmly as he got himself off to the sound of his voice. And then he pictured it again, realizing dimly that he was hard and aching and desperate to come, but the voice wasn’t Ethan’s anymore but a strange darker, warmer voice that was calm and soft and deeply, deeply loving.

“Oh,” Spencer said, and curled up on the couch with his hand shifting quicker, his breath catching. A hand curling around his back, a body holding him close—wider and stronger than him, with hands that splayed neatly over his chest—lips against the back of his neck and a voice that breathed his name as he twitched and whined and felt himself pulse wetly into his palm. It was a bizarre trip backwards, a weird shift of his brain to offer him a voice he’d never known, just imagined, and he lay sedate and spent for a glorious three minutes before the agitation began to work back through his body and he slipped upright and padded his way to the bathroom to wash his hands.

In the bathroom, he stopped and stared. At the pills on the sink.

“Oh,” he said, and in the mirror his eyes were dark, dark, dark. And he didn’t remember taking them, but his teeth tasted bitter and sharp. A knock at his front door. He called out, wavered, washed his hands and drew the robe tightly shut, and before he could blink again the door was open and closed again and drawing her into his home where Reason met Desire and came away wanting.

“Did you start without me?” she asked, cocking at eyebrow at whatever she saw on his face, and he grabbed her and fell with her, back against the wall. Frantic, suddenly, for something _more_. “ _Ah_ ,” she gasped with her skirt rucked up and his fingers taking her apart already. “Jesus _fuck_ , look at _you_.”

_Mindless,_ he thought blankly, pressing closer and hearing her bag clink and rattle as it thumped against her hip. Glass on glass. _She likes me mindless._

Who was he to disappoint?

 

* * *

 

He heard his cell hum the next morning, or maybe the morning after or before or behind. Some part of his brain registered it. The other part was silent. Finally.

“It’s cheap,” a voice above him soothed, and he watched in fascination as the voice whispered and danced in yellows and greens around her head. “Sorry. All I could get in a hurry. Ready?”

“Mm,” he replied, and bucked his hips to make her gasp. And there it was. The pinch and the bite and the needle-sharp fingers on the crook of his arm, and he closed his eyes and thought, perversely, of Rhosgobel. Giddily, almost, because it had been months since he’d seen it or Aaron but now he might _finally_ be able to remember.

And he was desperate to remember because he’d proven too good at forgetting.

**From: Ethan**

**Happy birthday, kid. I’ll give ya a call later. Might be coming home early.**


	23. Pandemonium

He was twelve and they were fighting.

“You mean that?” he asked Aaron desperately, because the next year was college and something _terrible_ had passed over Aaron’s face when Spencer had told him that. “Still friends? Even… after all this is over?”

And he gestured around, at the fort that had sheltered and created them, this magical force that closed the world outside _out_ and left them safe within. Two boys finding each other. And it couldn’t… _end_. Could it?

But Aaron looked at him blankly with hollow eyes and Spencer saw their future. It could end.

And they’d both be alone.

“We’ll always have Rhosgobel,” Aaron lied. And then he walked away. And Spencer waited.

But he didn’t come back.

_(“What did you do?” he asked her, again and again and again because his skin was crawling away and this wasn’t right, this wasn’t right at all, she’d done something. “What did you do what did youdowhatdidyoudo—”_

_He had to stop, take stock, stop and stop and stop and he tried but his brain was whirling and he looked back and found himself lying on the floor, blinking oddly up at the ceiling. He stared down at his face and wondered when the boy from Rhosgobel had gotten so empty so broken so worthless—_

_and the woman said nothing)_

He was fourteen and drunk.

“You really care for this Aaron, don’t you?” Ross asked gently, tipping his own drink back and forth. Warm and comfortable, Spencer curled up tighter on his professor’s couch and dreaded going back to his lonely dorm. On the coffee table between them, his and Aaron’s stories. Ross _loved_ them. “You need to careful, Spencer.”

Huh?

“Why?” he asked, and only slurred a little. He frowned, biting at his tongue. Maybe he should stop drinking. But if he did, Ross would think he was just a kid, just another stupid kid, and maybe he’d look to one of the older, smarter students at the college to tutor.

“Teenagers can be cruel.” Ross leaned back and sighed, looking up to where his daughter slept in the room above. His wife was out, some party thing, but he’d come home early and Spencer had been almost shamefully pleased. It was something terrifyingly addictive, to be the focus of such praise. “And a man like you, you’d take a betrayal to heart.”

“He’d never betray me,” Spencer said firmly, and decided to finish his drink.

And Ross looked at him, something unknowable on his handsome features. Spencer flushed, uncomfortable and not knowing why, and busied himself with trying not to cough out the sharp liquor.

“No doubt you know him best,” was the final reply.

_(bathroom. bedroom. bathroom again. he was a stop-motion man jittering from room to room and he knew this feeling now this savage disconnection he knew what was happening and stop-motioned back to his room where he crouched and felt his fingers crawl like spiders on her naked arm as he spat words down on her that were cruel and violent and angry as he demanded what she’d done and she blinked awake and blinked away and said in a voice like **his** ‘it’s just a touch of ketamine with the coke spence it’s fine just ride it out’ but he knew this feeling and he stood and cringed back to a safer room a nicer room and burrowed deep and rattled himself apart with the frantic beating of his rabbit heart against the trap closing around it)_

He was fifteen and now he knew how to self-destruct.

“You ever been fucked before?” asked a man full grown and Spencer lied and said no.

He didn’t flinch and he didn’t cry and he didn’t tell anyone and he wished he was less.

_(the sheets touched his throat and he screamed and curled tighter and then flickered from the bed like a ghast in the night scratching and tearing and panicking his mind was gone his conscience shattered and then he whirled around and the world whirled with him and a man stood in the doorway_

_he knew this man_

_he hated this man_

_stay away from me he screamed and howled and threatened and the man crept closer_

_hands like vices grabbed for him and he felt his mind spiral smaller and knew those hands would carry him and then lay him down and then hed suffocate under the weight of them with his mouth against the bed and vomit pooling between his teeth until hed choked hed choked and it had hurt and he couldnt move and it would happen again and_

_stay away from me)_

He was ten and his father was leaving.

“Why can’t you be normal?” William asked coldly, and then he lit the match and burned Rhosgobel to the ground with Aaron inside. Spencer screamed. He ran. Someone caught him.

“Shh, shh, love, shh,” murmured the voice, arms around him, and he was huddled in the corner of a ratty dorm-room with nothing but a towel and broken intentions. “You’re okay. I’ve got you, baby, I’ve got you. You’re safe.”

But he wasn’t.

_(stay away from me he shrieked and the man didnt_

_if you can take me you can take them aaron had once said_

_he struck_

_bone shifted under his hand and the man reeled back with a grunt so spencer struck again and again and again and again until he was thrown down and screaming as the weight came back and pushed him to the floor he couldnt breathe he couldnt and he gagged and began to choke on his fears as his heart hammered and hammered and hammered and_

_stop)_

He was fifteen and he’d found a man who he knew had cruel hands and too little heart.

“How would you start your story?” asked the cruel man who’d hit him once and then again when Spencer had told him to keep going. “If you had to tell someone about your life?”

And Spencer should have replied, “I wouldn’t.” Because perhaps he’d have been better off never born.


	24. Psychoactive, End

Spencer woke in stops and starts and couldn’t tell what was waking and what was dying and what was in-between. The ground was cold and hard and he reached to touch it to find it real and paused when his hands revealed themselves to be rust-red and flaking.

Blood. There was blood on his hands.

He whined and tried to stand and knew he couldn’t. Thrown down like a forgotten thing into the shower stall, he realised, turning his head and finding Ethan’s shampoo staring back at him.

“You’re okay,” said a thick, unfamiliar voice, and Spencer turned his head to find a ghastly creature looking back at him from a compressed little bed made up inside the bathtub. Pillows and blankets and Ethan in the middle with a towel over his face and his eyes sunken black. “Spence, hey. Look at me. Keep looking at me. If you try to stand up, I will call the ambulance. And they will bring cops. Just keep looking at me. You are fine.”

“I’m dying,” Spencer rasped, because the truth was shuddering down on him, inescapable and cloying and he was destitute, lost, shattered. “Ethan, don’t let me die.”

Ethan swore and the words were wrong. He lowered the towel and wiggled up to lean closer to the shower, but wary. Spencer reeled at the sight, the red painted across his friend’s familiar face, the broken cant to his nose, the split across one cheek. “You have no idea how good it is to hear you ask that,” Ethan said with a wet chuckle, and coughed. His teeth were bloodied. “You’re not dying. You took some crap coke, alright. God fucking knows how much of it or for how long. And this is the twelfth time I’ve told you this, by the way. Some eidetic memory.”

“Eidetic memories are imperfect,” Spencer answered automatically, his brain suddenly grinding into gear. Adrenaline was still pumping. He swallowed and tasted vomit, looking down and finding himself naked and barely clean. “They’re still subject to distortions and additions. Who hurt you?” Anger began to thump, horror, shock. Someone had come in here and hurt his friend, while he’d been insensible, out of his mind. Hutchins again, perhaps, or maybe someone from VU… “Who hurt you?” And now he was standing and Ethan bolted up with his hand outstretched, but when Spencer reached for his friend’s face to see how bad the damage was, Ethan flinched away.

He flinched away.

And Spencer froze. Because Ethan had never flinched from him. Not once.

“Sit down,” Ethan said cautiously, his nose bleeding anew. Spencer stared. There was bruising showing now, swelling his friend’s eyes. Both of them, the green almost obscured by purpling eyelids. “Now, Spencer. Sit. Down.”

“Oh,” said Spencer, and sat. “Oh god.”

He’d done it.

“I don’t know,” Ethan lied, as he’d probably been lying every time Spencer had asked. “I didn’t see them. There’s water in a bottle to your left. I need you to drink it, buddy.”

“You need to go to the hospital.” Spencer obediently picked up the water and drank it, spilling water out the corner of his mouth as his clumsy hands wavered. And just like that, with a sickening throb, the adrenaline receded and left cold, clammy horror and the creeping tendrils of coming down behind. “An untreated broken nose could lead to difficulty breathing. Do you have a headache?” Nausea pulsed.

“I’m not going until you’re back in your head,” Ethan said firmly, but there was some tension fading from his body. Spencer assumed because he sounded lucid. At the least, Ethan crouched and moved closer, his hand reaching for Spencer’s throat to press against the carotid. Spencer caught that hand with his and promptly forgot what he was looking for when he saw the splits in his own reddened knuckles. “Stop that. I can see you freaking out. You didn’t know it was me.”

And there it was.

“Oh my god,” Spencer managed, and then he buckled as his body rebelled. And because he’d never turned away and didn’t plan to now, Ethan held him. Held him as he threw up and then as he gagged and, finally, as the shock slammed home and left everything hazy and distant as he cried and cried and finally broke. Endless repetitions of _I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry_ and nothing could fix this. Nothing could atone.

“Headache?” Spencer finally managed to slur, sniffing damply and squeezing his eyes shut. “Eth?”

“A small one,” his friend admitted. Spencer jerked up, staring at him accusingly. Ethan looked away, and he swayed a little.

“You could have a concussion!” Spencer told him frantically, scrabbling up and barely noting the grossness of his body right now. “Head trauma is _serious_. You need to go to the hospital. You can’t drive, I’ll drive you, I just have to—”

“Spence, what the fuck, no.” Now Ethan was standing, his expression twisted. “I’ll cab it, okay? You can’t drive. You’re fucked up.” But he paused, looking torn. “I can’t leave you here. You’ll… be stupid, _fuck_. And I can’t take you. They’ll know…”

“I won’t be stupid,” Spencer whispered, closing his eyes. He was going to be sick again. “If you go to the hospital, I promise. I won’t be stupid. Please.”

Ethan stared at him tiredly. “In the morning,” he said finally. “I’ll go in the morning. You need to shower.”

Listlessly, Spencer did as he was told.

There was no atoning for this.

But he had to try.

 

* * *

 

They kept Ethan in overnight. “It’s just a concussion, Spence,” he’d grunted over the phone, and Spencer hadn’t said a word in reply. “Observation and I’ll be back. Seriously, I wish you weren’t there alone…”

“Sorry,” Spencer managed, and hung up.

He’d spent the day alternating between being sick, violently sick, until he was sure there was nothing left in his body to expel, and cleaning the apartment. Living room first, mostly untouched. Kitchen next, fairly okay aside from food scraps and dirty dishes. Bathroom next, scrubbing vomit and blood from the tiles and grout. Ethan’s room he found was a hurricane of untidiness, most of it probably Ethan’s. But there was a sheet furrowed on the floor and a pool of blood drying into the carpet and he scrubbed that until his knuckles were bleeding again and he was forced to put his brain into gear and use the chemistry degree he had for once. It didn’t vanish, but it definitely faded.

He left his room until last. It told a story. One of them had been ill in here and he cleaned that first, before stripping the bed of the sweat stained sheets that were marred with brown spots of blood and gritty marks.

He found his stash and he ran the lot into the kitchen sink before his brain could tell him to do otherwise, and he did it while thinking of the blood in Ethan’s carpet the whole time. The stink of bleach around his swollen fingers was enough to keep him focused.

And when the apartment was clean, he sat and he thought and he finally began to use the brain he’d been born with. Because this was a turning point. If he didn’t go forward from here, he needed to leave. To destroy himself somewhere else, somewhere hidden, where Ethan would never find him again.

But the apartment grated so he found Ethan’s keys and a bottle of water and then he took the car and he drove until the night was around him and pressing in. Leaving DC behind.

The tires crunched over gravel, an unfamiliar sound. He’d never driven here before, this horror movie landscape of leafless branches and whipping wind. He’d never been here in autumn before.

He got out and walked and left the keys in the car. Up the hill and past the copse of trees where he knew a lonely fort was built. But he didn’t go see, because he knew he couldn’t bear it if it was gone. And he walked around the rim of that lonely quarry until he found a section where the fence hung low, and he sat on the edge with the chain-links groaning under him and his body bared to the wind.

He remembered a storm and an outstretched hand. He remembered looking down into the depths and feeling the grossest desire to step out into nothing. He remembered being smaller than this and yet somehow bigger at the same time.

He looked down now and wondered.

Turning point. Stop or go.

His cell was in his pocket and as the cold autumn wind tore around him, he pulled it free. Perversely, this was the point he opened the message wishing him a happy birthday from Ethan. There would be a letter from his mom as well, no doubt, home in his post box. If he left this place to read it.

He looked up across the darkened chasm to a spot he’d always know, no matter what angle he viewed it from. From here, he couldn’t see Rhosgobel, but he fancied maybe waiting until dawn just to see the sun rise unto it. And maybe it would be different from memory. It would have to be.

It would have to be, he realized, because his memory was fallible. Idealistic. Maybe all his memories were tainted with longing.

Maybe everything he remembered of Rhosgobel and Aaron were tainted by this rosy bias.

He dialled a number from memory.

_This is Sean Hotchner. Stop complaining about my answering message and leave a message, fuckwits._

He cut it before it ended, hefting his phone in his hand. The wind howled. He looked down. He pressed his mouth to the cuts on his hands. His glasses slipped on his nose, fogging in the cold, and he wished he’d worn his contacts for this.

And then he rolled back, crawled off the chain-link fence, stood up, and walked back to the car.

He drove home with Ethan’s jazz music blaring and didn’t falter once.

Forward.

 

* * *

 

Ethan stared down at the money on the table.

“What is this?” he asked quietly.

“It’s yours,” Spencer replied, hunching over himself and hoping Ethan couldn’t see the night he’d spent in the lonely quarry in the shape of his shoulders. “It’s everything I have, every cent. If you’ve got it, I can’t buy drugs.”

Ethan looked up, his expression odd. “You’ve shaved,” he noted, and Spencer nodded with his face cold and itchy. “And… showered. Nice sweater-vest. That new?” Another nod. If Spencer was going to do this, he was going to do this as the him he was _before_.

“And wrote this,” Spencer said, pushing the contract forward. His final chance. He couldn’t fuck this one up. Ethan took the sheaf of paper and read it slowly, eyes sleepy-green and sluggish, probably still under the influence of painkillers. “It details exactly how much of my money you should allocate me per week, how much I’m allowed, and where I should be at all times. With a clause that it can be loosened after three months, and further again after six. I’ll reapply at the college—they’ll take me if I’m clean. I’ll go to NA. Not rehab, and not therapy, but I’ll go to NA. And it’s not legally binding, obviously, but I promise—I’ll abide to it, Ethan. I need to… I can’t do this. I _hurt_ you.” His words hitched, choking a little. “I’ve… I’ve never hurt anyone before.”

Not even the man he’d thought Ethan was.

“This is nuts,” Ethan murmured, lowering the paper. “Spence, this is nuts. This is abusive relationship level controlling. I’m not comfortable with this, I don’t want access to your money, this is _gross.”_

“But it will work.” Spencer was certain. “We’re not in a relationship. I can leave at any time. I’m sober and I’m clear-headed and I’m agreeing to the terms—but there’s a second page. I knew you’d be uncomfortable with the power imbalance, so I wrote a second page.”

Ethan flipped it over, eyebrow cocking up. “I enjoy that yours is prison level intense and mine is ‘I won’t consume alcoholic beverages to excess’.”

Spencer shrugged. “I thought about putting a clause in there about cleaning the bathroom, but thought that might be a bit much to hope for,” he tried to joke weakly, but it fell flat.

“Okay,” Ethan said finally. “I’m not… I’m not going to abide by the location restrictions, I’m not comfortable with that. But I’ll look after your money until we’re… until you’re better. What about while you’re withdrawing?”

Spencer breathed in slowly. One hurdle down. So many more to come. “Does your Gram need more painting done?” he offered, and was gratified when Ethan smiled.

“Bet we can find some,” he replied, and went to call their workplace.

And Spencer knew; this would work.

It had to.


	25. November, 2000

It wasn’t just that they needed the money. They did. And he was adamant that was why he was doing this.

But it wasn’t.

The problem with sobriety is how _dull_ it was. Spencer was bored. He was bored and he was muted and everything seemed lesser, duller, _tedious_ , when compared with the sharp-edged brightness of being high. And he knew it was just a side-effect of his body protesting the removal of chemicals it craved—but that didn’t make it any easier.

“You’re going to feel like this for a while,” Ethan had told him that morning, walking out and finding Spencer sprawled on the couch belly-down, staring blankly at the wall. Unshowered and unshaven and wearing the same clothes he’d been wearing for three days. “Come on. You know this. Don’t let it beat you.”

“The neurotransmitter levels in my brain that combat depression are still in the process of recovering,” Spencer had replied, turning his face into the couch and mumbling into the fabric. “Let me mope.”

“No shit.” Ethan had flopped down at the end of the couch, shoving Spencer’s legs out the way. “You think I don’t get it? I’ve been numb since I kicked it the first time at twenty-one. Find something to distract.”

But the problem was, Spencer had found, that when he had a brain capable of doing so many things at once, it always seem to prioritize a small section to the process of whispering how much _more_ everything would be if he was stoned. And that small part was quite gleeful to remind him that it hadn’t always been bad trips and ODing… it was quick to bring up the times he’d been delightfully buzzed and cuddled up on the couch watching Ethan playing, with the music visually flickering around his housemate’s clever fingers. Or the days that the coke sharpened his focus to the point that he knew his mind was almost transcendental, infinite, and everything he’d ever wanted to know was dancing at his fingertips.

He didn’t miss the sex. That had always been an uncomfortable side-effect of the process of finding that pure bliss. Fantastic at the time, sure, and there had been times he’d felt like he was learning everything about the person he was with simply by exploring their bodies with his, as though he was _connecting_ , on a level he couldn’t manage when sober… but always followed by the come-down, the sick realization that he was wrong, coarse, corrupt, and he didn’t believe in the concept of sin when applied to the collective of humanity but he was sure it was threaded through his veins alone.

The problem was, he’d found a new way to get that dopamine kick. And his tolerance level was already rising.

He’d started in the licensed casinos, those that didn’t serve alcohol on the floor. They allowed those under twenty-one to play, and play he did. But that grew boring quickly, even his muddled mind still together enough to walk him mindlessly through the paces. It was comforting, in a way. Poker in the smoky casinos with the bark and chatter of slot machines in the background was a quiet narration of his childhood, the hometown song of Las Vegas, and it pulled at a part of him that was buried deep and tucked in with memories of Saturday morning cartoons and digging through the cereal box for a gimmicky toy.

But he couldn’t really cheat there, or he could, but he knew that would end with his name in the unspoken book and his face banned from every gambling establishment in DC.

He couldn’t really, but he did, and it was thrilling. He didn’t win too often. He couldn’t afford to be pulled aside, questioned, perhaps a little more. Couldn’t afford the threat of bruises. But the adrenaline of the _maybe_ kept him going back.

But what were bruises?

He shifted to the seedier establishments. Still licensed. Alcohol ran quickly, he was glad of his fake ID, and winning big got you a shark smile and eyes following you to the front door. There was coke in the bathrooms and women who would slip to your side if they thought you were lucky.

Spencer was lucky—or rather, he was _clever_ —but he eschewed both. Because this was thrilling and vivid and real, but anything more would be failing his friend and the contract he’d bound himself to. At the end of the night, Spencer would return home and quietly leave his winnings on the kitchen bench when Ethan wasn’t looking, all the better to avoid the pinched lips and worried eyes of his roommate when he noticed them.

“Gambling?” Ethan asked once, almost like he didn’t want to.

“Statistics,” Spencer corrected him.

And the seedier joints wouldn’t leave him with just bruises. There’d be a back room somewhere and possible broken bones, fractures, all under his clothes and out of sight. He wouldn’t end up on a book, but he may end up bleeding.

Tonight, he was cheating, badly. His brain was scattered, fogged by the thick stink of cannabis smoke cloying the air and the distraction of the open drug use around him. Within reach and people were revelling in it. A man hung close, his mouth slipped up into a lazy smile and his eyes sharp enough as he scanned Spencer’s bare arms that Spencer knew he was noting the barely fading track marks, the traces of scabbing where he’d scratched at the skin, the tremble to his agile fingers. Spencer was marked, and he knew it was making him clumsy.

He ignored the crowd around them, drunk and loud and screeching. Beery breath and sticky surfaces and there was another man with a burly physique who’d marked Spencer as well, but in a different way. He shoved close and crowded hard and every one of Spencer’s neuroses bound around his personal space were clamouring. It was a hard-edged adrenaline that was transitioning into anxiety, and Spencer swallowed down the panicked push of fear and tried to work through it.

He drew the wrong cards. Jack high.

He folded regretfully and knew eyes were on him. To shake them off, he schooled his expression to boredom and scanned the foggy room, trying not to linger his gaze on the girl in the corner distributing pills from a Hello Kitty fanny-pack, the irony in the smiling cartoon cat’s speech bubble proclaiming ‘Have a Happy Trip!’ lost on no one.

New deal. Pair of aces. The crowd scuffled and he slipped a card. Lightning fast and he knew there weren’t cameras on these tables, but someone’s head snapped around to him and he was forced to make unbroken eye contact just to disarm them from their half-built suspicions. The room was cold, all the better to keep people drinking and moving, and he saw the suspicion vanish as they drain their glass and moved on to more interesting occurrences.

Then he looked around the room once more. Someone fell over against the wall. The pool tables were crowded. One stood slightly apart, empty except for a girl waving the cue around excitedly and her companion, a wide-shouldered man, watching her with his back to Spencer. Dark hair and his expression was obscured, but Spencer could see tension in the line of his body, even from this far.

“Oi.” The sharp retort was enough to catch his attention, drawing it back to the game, but he’d lost the edge. Scanned his cards and tried to think. Time to walk away.

A hand caught his as he murmured his resignation and gathered his winnings. It closed tight.

“Not quite yet,” said the burly man with a knife-edged smile, his friends circling like vultures, and there it was. The kick Spencer was looking for.

In that moment, he was frightened, giddy, and _alive._

Instead of talking his way out of it, he grinned sloppily and let it play out as it would.

 

* * *

 

The beating wasn’t the worst he’d ever had. Not even close, but bad enough that he was going to need to bother Ethan because there was no hiding the blow to his mouth or temple. And he wasn’t willing to skirt brain damage with an undiagnosed concussion. He rolled with the hits and then felt a hand wrap through his collar and haul him backwards.

And that hadn’t been part of the plan. Going stiff and anxious, he tried to tear himself out of that grip as it ripped him through the bustling crowd and towards an outside door. Fire escape. Would almost certainly open into an alleyway, a secluded place. Dim lighting, plenty of forgotten places, and no eyes on him.

The grip twisted and his shirt bit deep into his throat, and panic tried to decimate him. “Guh,” he managed as his airway was obscured, shoving away a grim reminder of all the bad things that could follow that incrementally increasing pressure. Spots danced and then he was flying, through the door and into the cold air of the outside, hitting the cement hard on his back and gasping as he lost all his wind and struggled to regain it.

They surrounded him, the door clicking shut. For a single long moment, he hoped it would open again, some sign of security following. A false hope. So, he counted. Five on one.

_Bad odds,_ he thought glumly, and curled up tight to transfer the wad of money he’d pickpocketed off the man who’d hit him first from his sleeve to his pant pocket, unseen. The ground smelt of piss and spilt gas and garbage and his nose burned from the noxious mix. Then he went limp.

It’d hurt less if he was relaxed.

Spit-flecked and gasping, their slurs and insults were unimportant, their gestures of contempt irrelevant. Being spat on wasn’t fun and the germaphobe in him was internally screaming, but it wasn’t the first time and he doubted it’d be the last. He just tilted his face away, closed his mouth tight and filed away all the information on saliva based bacteria for later perusal. Preferably while within a hot, soapy shower.

And then number six arrived.

“Excuse me,” said a polite voice, and they all looked around. Spencer took the chance to catalogue his injuries, and then found himself looking up into dark eyes and a practised calm expression. Dark eyes, dark hair, on a handsomely shaped profile, and Spencer knew that profile, once he removed age and added softer eyes. He knew those eyes too. Knew them laughing, knew them crying, knew them looking out over an empty quarry and seeing magic instead of misery.

He knew them. He couldn’t not know them. And bizarrely, as he studied them and committed them to memory, he thought, _I knew you’d find me eventually._

 

* * *

 

“Aaron!” shouted one of the group of friends who’d shown up to lend the dark-haired man a hand, and Spencer walked faster. Away from a possible confrontation and away from the gut-wrenching lurch of _holy fuck_ that followed the confirmation that his mind wasn’t fucking with him.

But the feet followed, a familiar/unfamiliar tread, and Aaron was there. Spencer stooped and bowed and just _breathed_ through a wave of panicworryshock _somethingmore_ , until the voice said, “You’re hurt.”

_Oh,_ Spencer thought, and closed his eyes. Back to Aaron, coat on his arm, and he knew Aaron hadn’t recognised him. He knew. _Yes. Yes, I am, and you are too, and you don’t even know._

Because if there was any one thing he knew that he remembered impeccably, it was Aaron’s voice when he talked to Spencer. The tone. It was a tone just for him, soft and awed and a little overwhelmed. And it was sharp when he was grumpy and barely awake and giddy when they were kissing and gentle when they were walking together.

“A thanks would be nice,” said the voice, and it wasn’t any of those. It was a bit thick, a little amused, a lot worried. But the distant kind of worry of a stranger. And his voice was deeper, broken.

Spencer wanted to hear that voice say his name. Like it had used to.

Before all of this.

“Thanks,” Spencer managed, eyes unblinking and focused on a storefront across the street. He was dizzy and shaken and desperate to turn around. He was dizzy and desperate and… terrified of turning around. “Is that all you wanted?”

He needed to run. He needed to turn. He needed to… sit down.

A scuff of a footfall. Aaron was approaching. His chest tightened.

“Not gonna get checked out?” Aaron said quietly, and Spencer almost gasped because he _cared_. Spencer was no one to him and he cared enough to step in, get hurt, and he had no idea. No. Fucking. Idea. “No point in me getting my ass kicked for you, only for you to go home and die from internal bleeding or something.”

“Or something,” Spencer managed. “That was unnecessary, what you did. I’m grateful. But I brought it on myself, you didn’t. I was clumsy.”

“They said you were cheating.”

“I was. Clumsily.” Clumsily, and he didn’t deserve this. His hand drifted from his aching gut to his pocket, thumbing the notes and realizing, with a jolt of _oh no_ what this meant. What the money meant. And his coat was off, his arms bare, and he looked down and swayed when he saw the track marks vivid in the yellow streetlight. He needed to…

Run.

“Their drunken attempt at ‘teaching me a lesson’ also allowed me to regain my winnings.” He turned with his face tilted down at an obscure angle, and threw the money down in front of Aaron’s shoes. “Here. My thanks.” Magic; delay, distract… disappear.

And he walked away without looking. If he looked, he couldn’t do this. He couldn’t do this _again._

Every step final. Every atom of his body buzzing as he was horribly, dangerously aware of everything that had changed in him and made him unworthy of his past’s regard.

But Aaron followed. Running, grabbing Spencer’s arm, he dragged him around and barked, “You fucking  _encouraged_  them to beat you, didn’t you you fucking idio—”

And he stopped. Stared. Reeled.

“Hi, Aaron,” said Spencer. He licked his mouth. He saw Aaron realize. He saw the shock and the confusion and, finally, he saw what looked almost like _hope._ “You look… exactly the same.”

Aaron said nothing. Just looked Spencer up and down, slowly, his eyes lingering on Spencer’s. A dark, deep, transfixing gaze, and Spencer almost stepped forward into it. Unequivocally summoned by that stare.

_Fuck,_ Spencer thought, because apparently he’d spent the last two years running and he hadn’t run fast enough; his heart hammering and his palms sweating and his knees trying to drop him to the ground.

“You don’t,” Aaron suddenly said, blinking rapidly. His hand twitched up, fingers brushing Spencer’s hand, and every nerve on Spencer’s body burst to life at that featherlight touch. Spencer held his breath as the fingers dipped up, clearly following a muscle memory path up to his jaw, before dropping back to twitch by his side. “What the fuck.” He swayed, back, and then forward, and then Spencer watched as Aaron’s knees did what Spencer’s had been threatening to and buckled.

“You’re falling,” Spencer said, too shaken and woozy to catch him. But he tried, with a shivering hand that he regretting holding out as soon as he looked down and saw the marked skin of his arm looking back up at him. His body flushed hot and cold with instant horror; he watched the hairs on his arm stand on end.

_Don’t look, don’t see,_ he chanted.

“I’m sitting,” Aaron mumbled, eyes closing. He knocked Spencer’s hand away as his ass hit the curb and his head bowed between his splayed knees. He didn’t see. Spencer breathed out roughly, wrapping his arms around his stomach, hiding his shame. “It’s voluntary.”

Spencer wavered. He could run. He could stay. Moving forward.

Or stopping.

Aaron’s shoulders bowed forward, his back stiff and breath rasping. A car wheeled past. Someone nearby shouted.

Spencer walked towards him. And, for the first time in three years, he reached down and touched Aaron’s shoulder. It was warm. His shirt was soft, dirty, and gave way slightly under his fingertips. Spencer’s breath caught. Touching. They were touching. This was real. He was a tactile man, his brain was wired for words and it was wired for thought but his body, his body was wired for touch and that single second of contact between them was a flood of every prior moment. It was an erasure of the last three years. It was Rhosgobel and a camp bed he never slept in and it was bowed over a desperate letter to a brother who could save his friend.

Aaron looked up at him. He reached his hand up.

Spencer took that hand. And he couldn’t.

He couldn’t process. Overwhelmed and overstimulated, his brain took that tactile sensation, and it and his eidetic memory worked together to consume him until there was nothing but Aaron’s hand in his and a numb, blanketing panic. A buzzing distant sensation that he knew would soon hit and bring him to his knees.

That was the problem with a brain like his. Sometimes it was too fast. Too much brain, not enough Spencer.

So, he stepped away. Not physically. Physically, he helped his friend up. Physically, he smiled blankly but without feeling, because he couldn’t feel without collapsing.

Mentally, he closed the door.

“We need to talk,” Aaron stammered, his face flushed and eyes huge and Spencer nodded vaguely. “Now.”

“Okay,” Spencer replied, feeling nothing. Keeping smiling. Eventually, his brain would chunk this information into something more tangible and less overpowering. “Your friends are looking for you.”

Aaron swore. He said, “Wait here,” and then he began jogging away. “I’ll grab my stuff and come back, and then we can talk, okay?”

“Sure,” Spencer managed. And his brain replied, _the date._ He thought about that for a moment, murmured, “Happy Birthday,” after Aaron’s retreating back, and caught his friend’s gaze one last time before he vanished around a corner.

And here came the crash.

Once, when Spencer was seven, his teachers had decided he should be placed into a program designed to ‘normalize isolated students.’ That had been news to Spencer. He hadn’t realized he’d needed normalizing, not yet. The ‘normalization’ consisted of a room full of barely supervised children from five years to fifteen, all entirely encouraged to conduct themselves in a ‘normal’ manner. Spencer had found it fascinating, at first, seeing what he should be. Interested in sports, he’d ascertained from watching the boys—there was a visible gender divide, he’d also noticed—and prone to shouting and jumping around a lot. After that, he’d begun to find it loud. Then he’d found it uncomfortable. And they wouldn’t let him leave.

And it had gotten louder and louder until he’d found a corner and curled up close and wished he was home. But they hadn’t let up. They’d pushed him to join in, and he’d felt anxious, distant, panicked, not enough. The crash had come. The utter, senseless panic. Fight or flight.

So, he’d run.

And he ran today. Just the same. The same seven-year-old boy, terrified of being faced with his own abnormality and his inability to reach expectations, let alone exceed them.

_I’m sorry, Aaron,_ he thought, as he ignored the pain of his body and focused, for a moment, on the pain in his mind. _But we’re not friends anymore._

_You wouldn’t like me as I am now._

 

* * *

 

Climbing the stairs was a bizarre out-of-body experience. He felt drained, peculiar; very much like he’d left some integral part of himself behind on a dirty street.

But he paused outside his apartment, because something salient was happening within. Stepping forward, he pressed his hand to the wood and listened, intently, and for a second forgot that his world had been rocked, because he’d been wrong.

Seeing Aaron, knowing he was here, in DC, _alive,_ had felt very much like no time at all had passed. Spencer could have, if he was brave, stayed on that street and waited for Aaron to return and they could have returned to what they’d used to be. As though no time had passed between them.

But time had passed. And things _had_ changed.

It would be a mistake to discount the importance of that.

And so, he unlocked the door quietly and stepped inside, walking silently to his housemate’s room and stepped inside. And, just as silently, he watched Ethan play; noting the soft and unfamiliar smile on his friend’s lips, the clever tap of his fingers over the keys of his Samsung, and the absolute feeling of being lost that was written on every aspect of the man’s countenance. It wasn’t a song Spencer had ever heard before, but there was an innumerable amount of music he’d never heard.

Despite the statistical likelihood of it being a song he’d simply never encountered, Spencer knew that wasn’t true.

“You’re composing again,” he said quietly, during a lull in the almost discordantly syllabic tune. Ethan twitched violently, head jerking around to stare. For a moment, there was utter confusion on his face, a being lost in something bigger than he was. Absolute focus, shattered.

“What the fuck happened to your face?” he barked, jumping up. “What the fuck happened to _you_? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“Nah,” Spencer said, submitting to his friend manhandling his jaw as he frowned at the cut. “Just a memory.” He smiled. “A _good_ one.”

He looked at the abandoned keyboard. Something loved, set aside temporarily. Ready to be picked up again.

He hadn’t faced that memory tonight.

But he would.


	26. Epistolary, 2000-2001

 

> _Dear Aaron,_
> 
> _I don’t know how to start this. I don’t know what to say. What can I say?_
> 
> _I know I’m not going to send this. I wouldn’t even know where to find you. The very idea that it is POSSIBLE to find you has barely sunk in yet._
> 
> _I guess because I’m writing a letter to a man from my past, intending never for that man to see it, I can likely be more open than I could speaking to you in person. I’m not sure I remember how to be open anymore. I’ve hidden so many parts of myself from everyone for so long now, I feel almost as though I’m irrefutably closed off from the world. Disconnected._
> 
> _Lost._
> 
> _I was right to run from you. I have no place in your life anymore._
> 
> _So why does it feel so wrong?_

 

* * *

 

**To: UNSAVED NUMBER**

**Stop contacting him. He’s doing great without you.**

 

**From: UNSAVED NUMBER**

**Y u always think the wrst of me? Mayb I just miss him**

 

**To: UNSAVED NUMBER**

**Saw you with one of your Johns Saturday night. Familiar looking guy. Reckon I know him. I wonder if his employer is aware of you. I wonder if the media would care : )**

 

**From: UNSAVED NUMBER**

**Fck u Ethan, u do that ur a dead man**

 

**To: UNSAVED NUMBER**

**You keep up, you’re an unemployed hooker.**

* * *

**From: Clary**

**Ur boyfriend is walking a dangerous line**

 

**To: Clary**

**Leave Ethan alone. And stop contacting me. You’re not a part of my life anymore. SR.**

 

**From: Clary**

**U cant walk away tht easily Spencer**

**From: Clary**

**Ull b back. U luv it 2 much to quit**

* * *

**To:** dr.s.reid7282@faculty.american.edu

**From:** gjo8865@student.american.edu

**Subject:** re: your request

**Body:**

Did some digging for you, Spencer. Bloke you’re after is at UDC, studying law. Doing real well from what his prof told me. Got some contact details for you if you’re looking to speak to him about the research project your team is heading. Threw them on as an attachment. Need anything else?

+1 attachment

_01/07/2001 12:19_

 

**To:** gjo8865@student.american.edu

**From:** dr.s.reid7282@faculty.american.edu

**Subject:** re: your request

**Body:**

Thanks heaps, Geoff. That’s all I needed. No further action required.

_01/07/2001 18:10_

* * *

**To: Ethan**

**Don’t be mad. I need you to come get me. SR.**

**From: Ethan**

**?? this better be good. I’m watching Bold & the Beautiful. Where are you?**

**To: Ethan**

**Hospital. There was an incident at work. SR.**

**From: Ethan**

**What?!? R u okay? Im on my way**

**To: Ethan**

**I’ll talk to you here. Don’t panic. I didn’t take any, they’re just making sure we’re all okay. SR.**

* * *

_…AUTHORITIES CALLED TO SCENE AT LOCAL NIGHTCLUB WHERE MULTIPLE VICTIMS WERE REPORTED TO BE IN UNRESPONSIVE STATES. WHILE THE INVESTIGATION IS STILL UNDERWAY, IT IS SUSPECTED THAT THE NIGHTCLUB WAS TARGETED BY ATTACKERS UNKNOWN WHO DOCTORED SEVERAL BOTTLES OF ALCOHOL WITH AN INCAPACITATING AGENT THAT WAS THEN SOLD UNKNOWINGLY…_

* * *

**From: E. Kyle**

**Cops want to speak to you and your roommate. Remember what we discussed.**

**To: E. Kyle**

**Noted. SR.**

* * *

**From: Ethan**

**Why were the cops asking me about response times for emergencies at the club? I wasn’t even working that night.**

**To: Ethan**

**Not sure. I wasn’t downstairs. By the time I knew what was happening, it was half over. SR.**

**From: Ethan**

**?? How did you miss half a club getting spiked? Apparently no one made the call for help for like… an hour after people started dropping. Wtf? That’s suspicious as fuck. What were you doing??**

**To: Ethan**

**Working. SR.**

* * *

> _Dear Aaron,_
> 
> _Why do people needlessly hurt others? There was an attack at my workplace. The police caught who did it, traced the hallucinogens back to the source. It was a man who wanted to do it because he could **.** That was it. There was no real reason. He delivers our bottled alcohol and had the chance to tamper with it, so he did._
> 
> _I don’t understand the appeal of callously inflicting pain on another person just to further your own desires. I wasn’t hurt, I wasn’t drinking so I didn’t consume any, but Ethan could have been. He could have been hurt. He could have poured the drinks that hurt others. I’m irrationally distressed by this idea. It lingers disturbingly in my consciousness._
> 
> _And a small part of me is disappointed. What does that make me?_

* * *

**February 28 th: _I reached out to Mom._ _This is the year I won’t let the day defeat me. Not like last year._**

**March 1 st: _I’m not counting the days. I’m barely even aware that the date is approaching. Aaron isn’t living in dorms, he’s in a shared apartment not so far from here. I feel as though I may have traded one addiction for another._**

**March 2 nd: _I keep writing him letters I have no intentions of sending. Am I talking to a man or the memory of one? I don’t know him at all. Ethan has a show tomorrow. He’s starting to become known. It’s delightful to see him gaining recognition for his talents._**

**March 3 rd: _I’m writing this in the morning because I KNOW I will last the day. I will not overthink this. I only need to last until the evening. Thirteen hours. I do not want to fail. I’m not thinking of failing. ~~But it seems impossible not to~~_**

****

* * *

**__ **

**To: UNSAVED NUMBER**

**Are you home**

**From: UNSAVED NUMBER**

**Spencer? Y u txting me**

**To: UNSAVED NUMBER**

**Never mind. SR.**

**From: UNSAVED NUMBER**

**U buying?**

**To: UNSAVED NUMBER - DRAFT**

**No.**

**From: Ethan**

**Where the fuck were you? Thought u were going to come watch me play.**

**From: Ethan**

**Fine, whatever. Be a shit then**

**2 MISSED CALLS: ETHAN**

**To: Ethan**

**I’m busy. Go away.**

**From: Ethan**

**Fine. Not like I constantly go out of my way to be there for you. Asshole**

**To: Ethan**

**K**

**To: Ethan**

**Are you coming home tonight**

**To: Ethan**

**Please come home**

**From: UNSAVED NUMBER**

**So? U buying?**

**From: Ethan**

**No**

**To: Ethan - DRAFT**

**Please. I’m**

**To: Ethan – DRAFT**

**Help**

**To: Ethan – DRAFT**

**I’m sorry**

**To: Ethan**

**It’s a bad night**

**From: Ethan**

**I’m on my way.**

* * *

**March 4 th: _I made it. Barely. I was an ass to Ethan. But I made it. I hate myself for struggling. When will it get easier?_**

****

* * *

****

> _Dear Aaron,_
> 
> _I know what I need to say to you if I ever get the courage up._
> 
> _I’m sorry I ran from you._
> 
> _I’m sorry I never told you what happened to me._
> 
> _I’m sorry I blamed you for it when it wasn’t your fault at all._
> 
> _I’m sorry I wrote you that letter._
> 
> _I’m sorry I ran from you again._
> 
> _I’m sorry._

* * *

> _Aaron,_
> 
> _But I’m most sorry that I let the boy you knew in Rhosgobel die._
> 
> _I’m not going to contact you._
> 
> _I’m not who you believed I would be._


	27. May, 2001

In his newfound resolve to not think of anything to do with Aaron, he’d forgotten one thing.

He hadn’t asked Aaron’s opinion on being forgotten.

**From: Ethan**

**There’s a man sitting outside the employee exit. Was asking bout u b4. Trouble?**

Probably, Spencer had thought, but then he’d checked the security footage. And even on the grainy screen of the outside angled camera, he suspected that he knew that profile. Knew that dark hair and the confidently assured way of standing.

And he knew he’d been an idiot. There wasn’t any way he was forgetting Aaron.

Spencer could be dumb, a lot. Sometimes. Most of the time. He wasn’t sure yet if he was being dumb or clever as he let Aaron follow him home, to his shitty apartment in his shitty neighbourhood; the apartment that said way too much about who he’d become instead of who he could have been. And he watched as the man who’d once been a boy from Spencer’s past looked around at Spencer’s present with an unreadable expression.

“Enjoying the view?” Spencer asked him tartly, with his heart somehow both in his mouth and slamming away all at once. Dizzy and sick, a little, from the tension of having Aaron _here_. In his home. The home he shared with Ethan. In his _life_.

The life he’d fucked up too much to share with another.

“No,” Aaron replied quietly, and looked at him. Their eyes met.

It was something _real_.

He slunk to the shower because he’d absolutely _always_ been a coward, even when they were kids and it had been Aaron rescuing him all the time, and when he came out, Aaron was asleep.

“Huh,” said Spencer, stopping and looking down at his—friend? Former friend? Acquaintance? He didn’t really know what they were anymore. Curled neatly on his side on the floor with his face flushed pink and almost drunk, his mouth slightly parted, and his clothes on the messy side of ruffled, Aaron looked innocent and oddly out of place. He also looked…

Incredibly attractive. Spencer eyed those broad shoulders and shivered, feeling that shiver work its way right down his spine and between his hips in a warm rush that was familiar and yet so much more potent than anything he was used to. And that was wrong, dragging this down to base lust, so he backed away from his sleeping friend and went to find a blanket to cover up the jeans that hung so nicely from slender hips and the hint of muscle that created an arrow drawing the eyes down below the waist. He added a pillow, added Aaron’s belongings, and finally stuck a glass of water beside him, and then planned to leave him to sleep and hide away in his room.

But instead he lingered. Watching warily as the other man slipped into a deep sleep and the lines on his face smoothed out. Tried to ignore the pang of something hurtful in his chest when Aaron mumbled and drew the pillow closer to his chest with his arms wrapped around it.

_It’s just lust,_ he told himself, and wondered idly when the last time someone had curled around him like that was. When he was fifteen, probably. Then he shook himself, realized he was dangerously close to being envious of a _pillow_ , and walked away in disgust to continue brooding in his room. _I’m just attracted to him because he’s an insanely good looking man who was once a kind boy and my brain is all… lusty…_

Lusty wasn’t exactly a good descriptor, but it seemed as good as any. Especially as the night slipped on and left him anxiously pacing his room, both waiting for and dreading the sound of someone stirring in the next room. _Especially_ as he kept flipping from being half-hard and wondering whether Aaron would welcome an advance to wanting to go in there and curl against that dangerously broad chest and press his mouth against the other man’s and whisper everything that had happened to him in a great gush of longing absolution. Like that would make everything better; like Aaron would hold him and forgive him and _love_ him like no time at all had passed between now and four years prior. But that desire wasn’t lust and he couldn’t even pretend it was, so he shoved it back to the corner of his mind where he kept everything that hurt to think about, and stewed instead about being lonely and horny and frustrated and probably a little in over his head.

“What the fuck?” Ethan barked suddenly from the living room, jolting Spencer out of his funk with a rush of shock as he blinked and registered light flickering in around his black-out curtains. “How the fuck did you get here?”

He sounded mad and stunned and Spencer didn’t really blame him after his track record, so he bolted out of his room and caught himself blurting; “Ethan, this is Aaron. He’s a… friend.”

Friend. Well, he hoped he was or else this was going to get really awkward really fast.

Aaron certainly looked strangely at him, half off the floor with his eyes still sleepy and his hair shucked up into a wild array of cowlicks that were both stupidly adorable and somehow completely not ridiculous on him.

“A friend,” said Ethan coolly, and he was giving Spencer the look that meant Spencer was probably going to get his room searched for drugs as soon as Aaron left. Which was fine. So long as he didn’t give _that_ away to Aaron. “What kind of friend?”

“Not that kind,” Spencer managed with forced calm. His arms burned. His skin itched, as though to remind him that if he gave into these ‘lusty’ desires and let Aaron become a different kind of friend, his body would give him away just as surely as Ethan would. “You’re late back.”

There was an unhappy furrow to Ethan’s face. It wasn’t just distrust. There was something coldly defensive there, some assumption he was making. “Don’t change the subject,” he snapped furiously, and Spencer winced as Aaron straightened and stepped forward, expression turning blank.

“Do you have a problem?” Aaron said in a sleep-husky kind of voice that was guaranteed to go right to Spencer’s cock if he let it. With just the right amount of firmness and bite. _Stop it,_ Spencer told his limbic system furiously, as Aaron continued; “I’ve been friends with Spence since we were kids. Your defensive attitude is uncalled for.”

_And more,_ Spencer thought a little hysterically, and almost giggled. _Stop that!_ Oh boy, he was going to end up hard just from _listening_ to that voice again, and wasn’t _that_ going to be fun to explain away later. _Oh, never mind me, Eth. Just dealing with a crush I thought I’d given up when I was fifteen but apparently never actually got over. Ha ha._

“You’re right, I apologise,” Ethan said finally, after a long beat of silence. Then, striding across the room and opening the door to the passage, he said through gritted teeth, “Spence, can we talk?”

In trouble.

Spencer followed his roommate silently to his room, wincing as the door slammed shut between him and Aaron. This was not really the best kind of reintroduction. It could be worse though.

Shit, it could be _so_ much worse.

“This is uncalled for,” he said, because Ethan didn’t seem ready to speak just yet. Just watching Spencer with a darkly worried kind of stare. “You’re not my keeper, he’s just a friend, and even if he wasn’t, you don’t have the right to get angry at my guests like this.”

Except he probably did and Spencer was only lashing out because he was embarrassed and upset that Aaron had already caught a glimpse that something wasn’t right in his life.

“Shit, Spence, I don’t give a toss if you’re _fucking_ the guy,” Ethan snapped. “I want to know if you’re scoring from him. I’m not doing this again! Actually, I want to know who the hell he is—you know it’s weird he rocks up asking about you and then I find him here, right? Kinda stalkery?”

“You’re assuming based on corre—”

“What am I supposed to assume!” Ethan flung his arms in the air as he spoke, his eyes wide, and yep, that was worry there. Something unknotted a little in Spencer’s chest at the sight. Under all this anger and sharpness, it was worry driving it and at least _that_ was something kind. “Spence, I… I don’t know. I just reacted, okay? You’ve been doing so well and then he rocks up and…”

“I can bring people home without them being drug dealers or tweakers,” Spencer murmured, a little shamed. But the anger was gone and Ethan just looked tired. Tired and old, and both of those things were probably Spencer’s fault. “He’s telling the truth. He’s a friend from when we were kids… we used to write letters, visit each other in summer. But we fell out of contact and bumped into each other recently, okay? That’s it. That’s all it is.”

That wasn’t even close to all it was, but it was all he felt strong enough to talk about right now.

Ethan was looking at him strangely again, with that half-sad, half-worried expression. “You’re not sleeping with him?” he asked, and Spencer blinked.

“I thought you said that didn’t matter.”

Ethan switched from one foot to the other, finally huffing hair from his face and leaning against the wall, looking haggard. His foot bumped an old guitar he’d been fiddling around with recently, without much luck. Spencer watched it slowly slide down the wall to thump to the floor with a _twang_ as Ethan said quietly, “It only matters because I’ve never known you to fuck someone sober, Spence. The only time you have sex is when you’re stoned.”

Spencer thought about that. Thought some more. Thought back.

Said, “Oh,” and then silently left that room with his head spinning a little and his stomach queasy.

Aaron was gone.


	28. June, 2001

_Dear Aaron,_

_I do want to tell you want happened. I so desperately do. I want, like a child wishes for a happy ending, to tell you and for you to fix everything, just like you did when we were kids and I was so painfully alone._

_But you can’t._

* * *

_Dear Aaron,_

_I keep writing this over and over trying to find the right words to fix this. This has to be my tenth try, and each is as hopeless as the last. I worry, what if there is no fixing this? What if what we were is lost forever?_

_I just want a friend_

_I don’t want to drown alone_

* * *

_Aaron,_

_I slept with a man who looked like you just to prove a point to myself. He is, I think, the first man I’ve ever slept with sober._

_~~I couldn’t go through with it and the night ended roughly~~ _

_He really wasn’t much like you at all._

* * *

_Aaron,_

_~~Maybe you should just move on and forget me~~ _

_Maybe I’m approaching this wrong._

_The Halcyon girl you know from that story is gone, yes. We’re going to have to come to terms with that. I’m going to have to come to terms with that._

_But that doesn’t mean she has to stay gone._

* * *

_Aaron,_

_If we’re quoting Tolkien now: ‘Fantasy is escapist, and that is its glory. If a soldier is imprisoned by the enemy, don't we consider it his duty to escape?’_

_We begin again at this moment as though nothing has come before it. Please?_

_One has to close the previous book to begin the sequel, after all. Consider this an end._

_We’re not friends._

> Halcyon was lost again. She fell.
> 
> The world fell with her.
> 
> She called for help and no one came. She cried as loud as she could, because the people, they said: ‘cry and your cries will be heeded’, and the people, they lied.
> 
> No one came.
> 
> Alone she moved forward. Alone protected her.
> 
> And she made her choice. Forward or back? Above to the sun that glittered on the surface of the lake that haunted her? Down to the careless depths?
> 
> Above to the boy who was merely the memory of a freckled face pressed against a grimy window.
> 
> Below to something different.
> 
> She shed the dress that was small and torn and she shed the skin of the girl of magic, and she dived.
> 
> Something different.
> 
> _Goodbye, My-Jack,_  she thought, and went to find herself as she should have to begin with. The world darkened, squeezed, closed around her; hands around her throat that tightened and cut away her air, a relentless weight distantly pressing down.
> 
> And then it was over.

_And now, consider this a beginning. I’m only sorry it took so long to find._

> She opened her eyes, wet and shaking, in a room that echoed with emptiness; nothing but a chest against the wall locked with a rusty bolt, a seamless door that wasn’t made to open, and a grimy, broken window.
> 
> A boy looked through, wide eyes startled. A boy, not a man, and she smiled. Picked up a pen and a piece of paper that slipped into being lost, just for her, and wrote carefully, every word integral.
> 
> _Shouldn’t you hate to grow up?_  she wrote, and the boy laughed soundlessly.

_We’re not friends; but we could be._

_Want to try again?_

_Yours if you’ll forgive me,_

_Spencer Reid_

_06/25/2001_

* * *

And Aaron followed him fearlessly into the storm.

Spencer led the way. Into the wild and windy night with sand whipping around them and the trees behind screaming in unison that all that held them to the ground was their straining roots; it should have been terrifying. Their clothes were wet, all they could hear was the crash of waves against a battered shore, their faces were numb. It should have been uncomfortable.

It was neither.

Spencer took a breath and stepped onto the groaning pier. In front of him, lightning forked wildly against a blue-black sky, reaching white fingers to the foam-tipped waves below. The wood beneath his shoes was damp and slick. He slid, throwing an arm out to steady himself.

Aaron caught his hand. Steadied him.

Hung on tight.

Without looking at each other, they walked along the pier and into the violent night. Faces tipped to the sky and eyes lashed with the rain. A wave slammed against the pier, throwing Spencer into Aaron, and he laughed and Aaron laughed with him. Their fingers tangled together. Neither let go of the other, but neither sought more than just this contact either.

And Spencer was giddy, wild, as unkempt as the storm as he shivered and smiled, because that was all he was. A boy, not a man, on the edge of the world as the sky raged above.

But he wasn’t alone. And he’d been a fool to try and forget this.

 _Booom_ rumbled the sky and the air turned thick and tinged with the metal-tang of ozone. Spencer breathed it in deeply, before allowing himself to be led to the side of the pier and hanging grimly onto salt-washed wood. Aaron leaned dangerously over the edge, his smile wide, his hair dark and plastered to his head. His nice clothes, the shirt and nice slacks he’d worn, both were terribly wet and stuck to a broad frame. He didn’t seem to care. Spencer thought, suddenly, of a fence and a quarry and learning to trust another innately.

For a moment, he closed his eyes against a wave that slammed into the pier beneath them, soaking their legs and ankles, and when he opened them, Aaron was leaning close enough that all Spencer could see was dark, dark eyes and the memory of being small and wondrous.

He pretended, for a single second, that they were two small boys in a storm. It was strangely easy.

Aaron’s mouth moved, the words swallowed by the sea and the wind.

“What?” Spencer yelled, leaning close. Lips clumsy and cold and warm all at once, his heart thundering.

“I said,” called Aaron, “shouldn’t you hate to grow up?”


	29. July, 2001

Life was a hazy mix of spending time with Aaron, going to work, hiding his work from Aaron…

Hiding himself from Aaron.

It was thrilling and exciting and overwhelming and Spencer felt like he was drowning in it, but in the very best kind of way. The attraction didn’t fade. He wanted Aaron, desperately, but he also wanted more. He wanted what they’d had back. Suddenly offered a taste of that halcyon friendship once more, he found himself paging through laminated letters still with the pinholes in the sides from where he’d stuck them to his college bedroom wall. All the mundane memories, so much sweeter for their childish mediocrity. He spent hours reading back through his and Aaron’s past, all the simple parts of it. The terrible ones he’d buried, but these he still had.

He realized, distantly, that he was only reaffirming his own rose-hued view of Aaron. All these letters, all these memories, they were the good with none of the bad. They were movies and storms and Lord of the Rings, but they weren’t Aaron’s Dad or Spencer’s Mom or being isolated and alone. And maybe he was drowning, but he wasn’t exactly reaching for a life-vest.

His cell buzzed constantly as they rebuilt a tentative something that solidified quickly into something more. Spencer was tapping out a text one morning while buttering toast one-handed when he glanced up to find Ethan staring at him.

“What?” he asked defensively, shielding his phone with his palm so that Ethan didn’t glance down and see his dangerously flirty text: _Results on your state of ticklish inconclusive. Need more evidence. When are you getting here? S.R._

“I’ve never seen you this…” Ethan stalled, his fingers wrapped around his thermos. Heading off to the musical practise he’d ended up auditioning for after Spence had dared him to, probably, but Spencer was off today and looking forward to having the house to himself. To himself, and to Aaron. “Uh. Happy?”

Spencer blinked. Was he happy?

Was this happy?

“He was my friend,” he settled for saying, “I missed him.”

Ethan shot him a strange look. “Missed him is one way of putting it,” he murmured. He slurped at his thermos, loudly, just to make Spencer twitch with irritation at the obscene noise. “Spence… um. I just… careful, alright?”

Incredulously, Spencer stared at him. Careful? Of _Aaron?_ What on earth was there to be careful of? “He’d my _friend_ ,” he repeated blankly, because didn’t that say _everything_? Aaron would never hurt him, not ever. “He’s not Clary or—”

“I don’t mean him.” Ethan wasn’t slurping anymore, but levelling a steady gaze at Spencer that made him feel small and twisted and dangerously out of air. “You don’t just get better overnight because you find a friend, Spence. Hanging your entire recovery on one man is asking for trouble, especially with your—”

“My what?” Spencer was shivering with something dangerously close to anger. “My _history_ , Ethan?” And he didn’t know why he felt so fucking angry, but how _dare_ Ethan bring that into this. He wasn’t clinging to Aaron because he wanted to _recover,_ he wasn’t using him as a twelve-step-program, and he wasn’t _stupid_. “Worried I’ll fuck him for a hit—”

The chair thumped the wall as Ethan stood, moving around the table in two strides as his hand flashed out to snap, vicelike, around Spencer’s wrist. Spencer squeaked, startled, and automatically felt himself go passively limp in the face of the expected anger. But there was no anger in Ethan’s eyes, soft even though his mouth was set in a thin, white line, as he turned Spencer’s arm and studied the crook of his elbow.

“I’m still clean,” Spencer managed, thrown. The marks were faded.

“You’re being a fuckwit,” Ethan replied sharply. “You’re not usually this much of a wanker unless you’re withdrawing. What’s got you so rattled?” He didn’t let go, but his grip had relaxed. More a comfort than a confine. Spencer tugged away and Ethan let him.

“I’m not going to—” But Spencer couldn’t say it. He couldn’t even insinuate it. “I’m—”

Completely incapable of facing his fears.

Ethan’s mouth twisted, confused and worried and still sharp, all at once. But he didn’t know. He couldn’t know.

“Just be careful,” his friend repeated, and moved away to gather his belongings. “What are you afraid of, Spence?”

Spencer couldn’t answer that either.

 

* * *

 

He wasn’t careful. He’d meant to be. Shit, he’d _really_ meant to be. But then there was Aaron and the man was a ridiculous flirt and so fucking pretty and—

Spencer let his head drop against the desk, the spiral-binding of the book under his cheek digging painfully into his skin. It smelled of paper and ink and cigar smoke, the ambient sounds of the club around him muted as he lost himself in his own insecurities, and the memory.

_What are you afraid of_? Ethan had asked, and then Spencer had stupidly stumbled right into it. _What are you afraid of_ and, as it turned out, what Spencer was afraid of was getting his gorgeous best friend off on his living room floor in a frantic, hazy fumble of hands and then having that friend look at him like _that_ , with fear in his eyes and panic flushing across his clammy face, and admitting that that was a _first_.

Spencer didn’t want to be anyone’s first. He couldn’t be. He’d… it wasn’t _possible_. Aaron was just so fucking handsome and well-spoken and his clothes were always so neat and styled, how could it be possible that Spencer was a first for him? That Spencer had taken the trust his friend had shown and lured him into—

Bile burned and Spencer turned his head, just in case. Wastepaper basket to the side of the corner desks he worked on—the last thing he needed was to vomit on the books. He’d be working overnights for _weeks_ fixing that mess up if he did.

_Your first time is special, Spencer,_ murmured a distant memory. _When you’re ready._

He lurched and puked into the basket, distantly hearing someone make a noise of disgust. It left him teary-eyed and trembling, hanging painfully over the desk with his fingers cramped around the rough edge and his head spinning. Drowning in everything he’d done, leading Aaron down the same path he’d been led down.

Oh god, he was doing it again.

“Oi,” barked a voice, and Spencer jerked upright and stared at a bottle of water floating in front of his nose. “What’s with you?”

Dent. It was just Dent.

“Bad dinner last night,” Spencer rasped, taking the water with a shiver. Dent was big on coke. The guy always had a bump on him, or two, and was generous with them if asked. He’d have some on him now. Just a little bit. Just a hit to get through this shift. One hit, half an hour max. No one would know. No one but him and Dent, and Dent never narked.

Dent was eyeing him now, his hooded eyes squinted down into an obscure kind of worry. “Maybe you should bunk off, go home,” he said, leaning closer and frowning. “You’re all sweaty. You tweaking?”

_No_. “No,” he managed. He wasn’t.

He could be. But that wouldn’t help. It might help.

“Here.” It wasn’t water being offered. It wasn’t coke either. Spencer shivered again, almost thankful, and took the cigarette Dent was holding. “Take five and decide. I’ll take over if you need. Nothing big needs to be done for a few weeks, we can spare you the night.”

Dent was kind, even when high. Which was something Spencer hadn’t managed.

“Thanks,” he said, and took the smoke. It would make him dizzy and dry-throated, but anything was better than facing that he couldn’t think about how Aaron had looked underneath him without becoming aroused. As though somehow in the interim between now and _then_ , Aaron had become nothing but a body to him. How would he know? It’s not like he’d managed any worthwhile relationships to compare it to…

He slunk outside, his head thumping and barely soothed by the wash of warm, July night-air that fell over him like a blanket as soon as the employee access door slammed shut behind him. He was in the parking lot, a single yellow light illuminating him in stark profile against the door, and he looked up and focused for a second on the blinking red light of the security camera that watched him emotionlessly.

He'd forgotten a lighter. The cigarette hung between his fingers, and he remembered when his mom was quitting. How he’d teased her. He flicked it and closed his eyes, slumping back against grimy brickwork and trying to catch his breath. Summer here wasn’t like it was at home. Even mid-July, there was a bite of cool to the air. A bite of coastal promise. Vegas didn’t have that.

“Damn,” he muttered, and put the cigarette to his mouth for something to do, chewing absently on the end. It left his hands free to pick at the threads of his shirt, loosen his bowtie, tighten his belt, end up tapping restlessly at the screen of his smartphone.

_Bored. Work is boring. I miss you. What are you doing? S.R._

The reply was instant, as though maybe Aaron was sitting there with his cell fretting over this too. _Nothing important. When do you finish._

Excitement churned with horror and horror with wanting and with the wanting came a sick flush of something that he wasn’t sure whether it was desire or cravings. Maybe the two things were so twisted up in his stupid addict brain that they basically amounted to the same thing anyway. But he hadn’t been clean for a year by giving into those baser desires.

_Three a.m. That’s way too late to visit. It’s not safe to travel at that time. S.R._

There. See. He could walk away from what taunted him. He could say no. He could _keep_ saying no. He was just… struggling. It would pass. It always passed. He bit down on the smoke and tasted nicotine and almost gagged, feeling the filter give between his teeth. And almost as though to mock him, while he was distracted, his fingers had typed out _wait, no. I do want to see you. Can you come over?_

He erased it. Typed out again _I think I need help and I want to tell you why._

Erased it again. Once more. _I’m an addict and I don’t know how much of the boy you knew is left anymore. Everything I do is tainted by that._

Erase.

_Tap tap tap tap_ went his fingers and he sent the final message before he could rethink it, shifting the smoke from one side of his mouth to the other using his tongue. _Bloop_ and it was sent. He stared at it.

_But I really want to see you. Tomorrow? S.R_

There. Only sort of giving in. Only sort of. But what would happen? Would they talk about what happened? Would they talk about what they wanted?

Would they have sex?

He shuddered. He wanted. He—

“Well shit, look what the neurotic cat dragged in.”

He spun, fist bunched around his phone and the smoke falling from his mouth as he opened it to shout for security. None of them were easy with being snuck up on. But it wasn’t anyone dangerous, or rather, it wasn’t anyone dangerous to anyone other than him.

“Clary,” he said coolly, and looked down at the cigarette laying on the dirty asphalt.

She was dressed for the weather, showing plenty of pale, freckled skin and faded tattoos as she sashayed over and examined him carefully through heavily mascaraed eyes. Hair tied back in a tidy bun and mouth bare of lipstick, her foundation only light today, he blinked and realized that, even in the yellow glare overhead, she looked healthy. Healthy-ish. Nowhere near as strung-out as usual.

“Hey, kid,” she said, cocking her chin back. “Need a fag?” He blinked. What? For a moment thrown, until she offered him a smoke from her own packet, nodding to the one he’d dropped. “Unless you’ve gotten over that weird germ thing you have.”

“No,” he said, then, “yes,” and took one. Her mouth quirked upwards; she lit her smoke first with a lighter that guttered low and then lit his with her own.

The first drag hurt. The second wasn’t any better. He coughed and kept coughing until his head cleared a little and the cloying, thickening anxiety that was twisting his thoughts and his brain into thoughtless tangles began to recede. His chest loosened. He hadn’t even noticed he’d been panting. They stood in silence.

“You alright?” she asked, and he grunted. “You look… antsy. Anxious. Figured you’d be doing better, now you’re off the shit.”

“I am better,” he said, and it was only half a lie. “You’ve put on weight.” A thoughtless observation, she probably wouldn’t thank him, but his mouth was running away with his loosening tongue and he distantly thought that he was definitely on the tail end of a panic attack that might have started the day before when Aaron had lain under him and admitted that this was nothing he’d had before. “I mean, you look good. Better.”

Clary’s eyebrows popped. “Fatter?” But she was smiling. It was a good look on her. Last time he’d seen her, her mouth was split open, her bottom lip a fat mess. He’d cleaned it for her. He touched it now, just to check. To anchor himself. There was ash falling from his smoke. Her lip was warm and she twitched away, pale eyes widening. He traced the touch down to her jaw, the skin that was smoother than it had been.

“You should stay clean,” he murmured, and her smile faded. Someone shrieked out the front of the club, raucous laughter. “It suits you. You look pretty.”

“Fuck you, kid,” she muttered. “You’re the only shitbag who ever says that, you know?” A pause, a sigh. “I’m not clean, idiot.”

Oh.

“Oh,” he said, his hand dropping. The smoke was burning down.

And she’d retreated, back behind her cool ice-eyes. Looking at him like a customer again instead of sometimes-something else. Was this the only semblance of a relationship he’d made since Aaron, aside from his fucked up half-infatuation with Ethan?

“You, on the other hand, look like being clean ain’t doing you any favours.” Her words were sly and he swallowed. Swallowed again. Stubbed the cigarette he’d barely smoked out under his shoe, feeling rocks grind and twist under his heel. Slowly. Slowly. Smoke curled from hers. The anxiety was back and craving made him stupid. Fear made him stupid. “I can help with that.”

He swallowed again. Unwound his numb fingers from his sweaty cell and peered at the time and at the message that blinked there.

_I really want to see you sooner. I can’t stop thinking about you. About us. About what we did._

Spencer Reid, meet wall. He slammed into his breakdown hard and stepped into her embrace, curling around her body. It was just a body, just sex. He’d prove it. What he had with Aaron was nothing like this.

“Yes, you can,” murmured the desperate man who sometimes took over the body of Spencer Reid, and led the way to his apartment.

 

* * *

 

He fucked her sober, just to prove a point. “Stop thinking,” she’d hissed to him, right before moaning because he’d taken his mouth and brought to right to the pretty curve of her breast. She had a tattoo there, a bird trying to leap into the air. He licked at it and imagined its wings catching the wind, and then he tapped his hips against her in the rhythm he knew she liked best. Fast and erratic and needy and willing, and she was high and pliable under him.

_Wait,_ she’d murmured, and he’d curled naked on the bed with his knee to his chest and watched her slip the hypodermic under her skin. Held her as she’d purred and relaxed into his arms, barely into it anymore but still willing to play along. He still got her off. More than once. He figured he owed her that much since he was basically using her as a _get out of Aaron free_ card.

And he didn’t think. He stepped back. He was good at that. _Disassociating_ they’d called it in the therapy he’d gone to twice in the time after. Whatever it was, he’d taken it and refined it to a fine art. Blanking out everything but the touch of skin and the throb of their hearts and the sound she made when she came. That was all that was important. He didn’t need drugs to be nothing.

“The hell is wrong with you?” she was hissing now, and he blinked back into his mind just enough to find his fingers tracing that grounded bird. “Don’t leave me hanging, asshole.”

He blinked again. He was softening within her, loosing that rhythm, losing the pace. Another shiver and he tried to reach for the nothing again.

His cell buzzed nearby, and he faltered.

“Wait,” he mumbled, pulling out before his distraction destroyed the integrity of the condom. “Give me a minute.” He used his fingers on her to keep her quiet while she rolled her eyes and went for the needle. Curled his own fist around himself and stroked and stroked and whined as he tried to find that knife’s edge, desire leeching away and leaving him cold. His eyes on the drugs. She fumbled the hypodermic, made a noise of annoyance, tossed that aside and went for the powder instead.

He waited until she was done and then he abandoned his dick and kissed her furiously, just to get a taste of the powder traces on her top lip, hating himself. Despising himself.

She glanced down, raised an eyebrow. “Not like you to be such a limp—” she began, but he made a low noise of anger and she stopped. “Just _take_ some, Spencer. You want it. Look at you.”

His cell buzzed again.

Rattled, he reached for it and she slapped his hand away. He kissed her again. Rolled her back onto the spotty sheets and tried to forget himself by being pushy, angry, demanding. She gave into that. She knew that.

He realized what he was doing and rocketed away with her with a sharp yelp, staggering up. Stunned and flushed all red across her bare chest, she stared at him with her pupils blown black and her legs still half thrown open. “The fuck?” she panted, wiping her mouth. There was a line of red marks on her shoulder where he’d gripped her. That would bruise. He’d bruised her. “Get back here, you almost—”

He fled. Bolted out of the room and to the bathroom, slamming the door so hard shut behind him that it bounced. Washed his face and hands and paced about the tiny space, toes squeaking on the gritty tiles. There were trousers in there, musty and sweaty from being worn at work. He tugged them on anyway. Found a shirt and sniffed it and winced as he recognised Ethan’s cologne. Not right now. He couldn’t do that.

_Thump thump_ yelled the bathroom door as someone battered their fist against it. Spencer curled back, ass to the sink and still half-naked. Bare-chested and trembling. He looked at himself in the mirror. Pink lips all swollen from kissing, his hair a wild mess, his throat marked by her hungry mouth. He looked like a whore. He bit at his lip and watched it turn white.

_Thump_ went the door again. “Spence?” called Ethan. “Was that you?”

Ethan?

Oh fuck.

Spencer stared at the door, frozen. Hoping Clary wouldn’t come out of the room, hoping Ethan hadn’t heard, cursing his stup—

The door had never locked. Or, it had once, and Ethan had removed it quietly and never mentioned it. Neither of them had. They both knew why a bathroom lock might be a bad idea in this household. It opened and Ethan poked his head in, eyes squinted shut in case he was about to cop an eyeful of his naked housemate and his mouth still half-grinning. “Hey,” he said, “you naked? What the hell was that? You almost scared the—”

Spencer didn’t answer. Ethan opened his eyes. Looked him up and down and went to make a lewd joke, stopped. There was a cool silence.

“You’re shaking,” Ethan said.

Spencer said nothing.

“Spence? Hey. Hey… what happened?” Being cautious. Being worried. He wouldn’t be soon. Soon he’d just be angry. “Are you hurt? Are you…” Spencer didn’t look away from those green eyes examining his, searching for tell-tale signs. So untrustworthy. Always untrustworthy.

“Don’t,” Spencer stammered. And there it went. The worry vanished, replaced with the stormy kind of oncoming fury he was more familiar with. “Don’t overreact.”

“Clary,” Ethan said. “Fucking _Clary_.”

Spencer smelled alcohol. Fear turned him cold.

Ethan was a volatile drunk.

“Don’t,” Spencer whispered again, but Ethan was gone. And Spencer stayed there because he was a coward, a goddamn fucking coward, until the shouting began. And then a little more, because his chest had gone all tight and narrow listening to them scream at each other, hearing the so-easily-unleashed rage that Ethan so rarely let loose except at the woman he despised. And he’d brought her here in the face of that.

Finally, he gathered together what was left of his mangled courage, and walked out there to face what he’d done.

 

* * *

 

Aaron saw it. He saw it all. Every last twisted, rotten thing that festered inside Spencer’s mind and body. He saw Clary. He saw the drugs. He saw Ethan at his worst.

And, still, he held him. Still, he took him in.

Spencer felt so so small in the face of that kindness. Unworthy.

The day after everything he’d thought he’d regained came crashing down under the weight of his contemptibility, Aaron went to Spencer’s apartment. Alone. Spencer didn’t say anything as Aaron told him this was happening. He didn’t have the right to say anything. Just sat quietly at Aaron’s kitchen bench with the man’s housemates orbiting around them and trying to pretend that they weren’t listening intently. He knew Ethan would be there. He knew Aaron and Ethan would talk.

He knew Ethan wouldn’t hold a thing back. Not a thing.

And he knew this was the end. There was no way Aaron would want anything to do with him after this. Absolutely no way.

“Stay with him,” Aaron had murmured to his housemates, and now the girl—Kate—was trying to talk to him in a soft voice that suggested she thought he was the _victim_ rather than the antagonist. Spencer answered everything as shortly and softly as possible, and eventually they stopped trying, just left him sitting there while he waited for this something to end.

The TV chattered with something vapid, the couple began bickering quietly, a clock ticked endlessly on the wall. Spencer’s cell was silent, loaded with the texts he hadn’t received—none from Ethan, none from Aaron—angry ones from work about him vanishing; he wasn’t worried, he was too important to be fired—and one from his provider offering him bonuses for switching plans. He played snake until the battery went flat, then did the dishes. Poked at the leaky faucet in the bathroom. Paced.

Found himself in Aaron’s bedroom faced with the relentless personality of the boy he’d loved and the man he’d become. In there, he found it. He was sitting on Aaron’s bed thinking of very little at all except how numb he felt, when his eyes fell on the paper folded inside an old, yellow-paged book. He shouldn’t have looked. He did.

It was their letter. The _trying again_ letter, and it was folded and well-worn from being read over and over and over. Spencer read it and then look at the book it had been placed in.

Lord of the Rings. The copy Spencer’s mom had given Aaron, all those years ago. Shaken, Spencer replaced the letter gently under the page where Diana had thanked Aaron for being friends with a lonely boy, and then curled on the bed to await the inevitable. It felt like minutes later but it might have been hours, as Spencer drifted from a half-doze to real sleep to twitching awake, when Aaron walked in. Spencer looked at him and waited for the final blow.

“What?” he whispered, and curled back into himself on the bed, as though trying to be as outwardly small as he was inwardly. But Aaron didn’t sneer. He didn’t spit or snarl or lash out like he should have. Instead, he looked at Spencer like his heart was breaking, and then crawled onto the bed with him.

They clung to each other in utter silence. Spencer couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move, could just rigidly wait for something awful to happen as those warm, firm arms folded around him as though hoping to shield them both from the world. His own hands scrabbled at Aaron’s chest, folding tight inwards and feeling cotton scrunch between his fingers.

“I would have helped you,” Aaron said suddenly, and his voice cracked painfully as he said it. “You weren’t alone.”

Spencer blinked. That wasn’t true. He’d always been alone.

“I don’t deserve help,” he mumbled, and let his head press down against Aaron’s shoulder. “You should leave.”

“You’re in my bedroom,” Aaron teased huskily, and then he began to cry. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry—” He didn’t stop and Spencer could do nothing but hold him, dry-eyed and numb, until it stopped on its own. And he knew.

All they were going to do was hurt each other.


	30. August, 2001

Somehow, things went… well, not how they had been. Not even close. But they got better. The horror of that night lingered and drove any thought of Spencer repeating it out of his mind. Ethan stayed cold and distant for weeks and that hurt, but Spencer didn’t let that hurt show. Just quietly kept his head down and avoided his friend, knowing that Aaron was getting all the wrong ideas about their friendship but unable to explain it any better.

“Has he ever…” Aaron asked one day, trailing off with his eyes locked on the front door of Spencer’s apartment where Ethan had just left for rehearsal without a word. Spencer waited, picking at a bowl of cereal and contemplating seeing if the DVD player was going to work today. “Uh. Hurt you?”

Spencer dropped the bowl. “No!” he yelped, probably too quickly, and rushed to explain himself. “Jesus, no, Aaron, no… we’re not like… we’re not dating, or ever, or—”

“You don’t need to be in a relationship to a be a victim of—” Aaron began in his ‘lecture’ voice, and Spencer barked a laugh.

“Ethan has never hurt me,” he said with complete honestly, thinking dully _but I’ve sure as fuck hurt him._ But Aaron had never been good at asking the right questions when Spencer was being evasive. “Aaron, Ethan… got me clean. He got me clean.” Silence for a moment. “I owe him everything.” And that, it seemed, was all Aaron needed to hear. The frostiness between the two men melted, even as Ethan continued giving Spencer the cold shoulder.

Which Spencer deserved and so tolerated, no matter how much it hurt.

He and Aaron were awkward for a week before Aaron tried to kiss him again. Spencer deflected, carefully, without making it obvious and the next day he went down to the clinic ensure he was still clean. He determinedly did _not_ think about what he was preparing for the eventuality of, not when his prior actions and Aaron’s admittance had led him to the belief there wouldn’t be any eventualities of that kind.

But then work got hectic again and Spencer found himself pulling long hours, longer days, until they began to blur together. Nothing unusual for the usual end of business year madness, as he was pushed to make sure every cent was legally accounted for in some way before the taxation office turned their eye towards them. It was long, mind-numbingly thankless work, with a side of wary fear that was new this year. Things were different. The small room he worked in, tucked in the corner of quiet business deals occurring around him, was busy more often than it wasn’t. And the people who brought that business…

They were armed. Spencer watched them from his corner through lowered eyelashes and didn’t let them see him looking. Some of the books he was cooking weren’t theirs—weren’t even close. He spent two days in lockdown working on a tome so thick and deeply coded that he forgot to eat for two of those days just trying to wrap even his brain around it. By the time he was done, it was so expertly encrypted that he could hand it over and sleepily guarantee the cold-faced man that the contents within were safe from everyone but the FBI’s best cryptanalysts. But it was worth it. He walked out of there with his usual cash-in-hand but with an extra three years paid off his mom’s care—absolutely worth it. His debt still loomed over him, but his mom would be okay. And wasn’t that worth so much more than his own financial situation?

And then they called him in again. “Full lockdown,” Dent warned him, which was never good, and this one took five days. Five days, and Spencer went cold on the third when he was puzzling through a particularly thick cipher and realized what he was working on.

“Spence,” said a voice overhead, and Spencer jerked upright to stare gritty-eyed at Ethan looking down at him. “What the fuck, Spencer? You’ve been missing for days.”

Spencer shook his head, his head grinding audibly with the movement and his vision blurring oddly. What day was it? Had he slept? A coffee was quietly congealing next to him in a chipped mug, next to a stale cheese sandwich. Around them was a sea of paperwork, stacked and piled dangerously and covered in yards of scratchy ink. “You shouldn’t be in here,” Spencer grated, because lockdown meant that _no one_ was supposed to enter this room. He was supposed to be alone. His eyes darted to the door, partially open, and he twitched nervously.

Ethan nudged it shut gently with his foot, leaning against it. He looked nervous too, not a normal look on him. “What is this?” he murmured, eyes darting across the paperwork. “This isn’t what you usually work on… I don’t recognise this.”

“Pure mathematics,” Spencer said, jittering. How much coffee had he had? He glanced at the mug again, then at the mug’s six brothers behind it. Oh. “It’s pure math. Integer factorization—the decomposition of a composite number into a product of smaller integers, that’s all, math, just math, it’s simple. I’m fine.” His hands trembled slightly, shaking his head back steady.

“When was the last time you slept?” Ethan asked, turning to glance at the camp mattress they’d given him. Untouched. He couldn’t leave while working. Couldn’t have his phone. In case he told. Or someone came in.

“Yesterday?” Spencer said, but that was probably a lie. He didn’t know what day it was. “Ethan, you really, _really_ can’t be here. This is…” He paused. He couldn’t leave, couldn’t tell people, and he really couldn’t nark now. They hadn’t said it in so many words, but there had been a white-edged gleam to Elliot’s eyes as he’d offered Spencer up to the man they were contracting to that suggested that the gun the man was carrying wasn’t purely for show. But Spencer was almost done—close enough to done—that when Ethan looked down slowly again at his notes (stupidly written in a simple Axis cypher that the man was definitely smart enough to recognise if he had any familiarity with cryptanalysis), the worry in his eyes turned to panic. Spencer wondered if Ethan had realized what he was involved with. Another tally against him.

“This is too deep,” Ethan hissed, his palm against the door. “You need to get _out_.”

But Spencer knew—these men owned him. There wasn’t any getting out.

He wished it could be different.

 

* * *

 

They kissed and it changed things. Not in a bad way, not at all. In a scary way, yes, but not… not bad. Hanging out with Aaron took a hazy kind of dreamlike reality to it. It felt like a step away from the mockery Spencer had made of himself. There was nothing of the club’s oily business touching him here, nothing of the debts he’d incurred or the people whose toes he’d stepped on. Nothing of the dark past reaching for him.

Just quiet days doing nothing of importance, watching movies or going out to explore DC or helping either other with their homework. Quiet afternoons spent unwinding with Aaron’s friends. Even, because after finding him in the office with everything he shouldn’t have, Ethan seemed to have completely forgiven him for Clary, quiet evenings spent spending time with Ethan and enjoying the way Aaron and Ethan were starting to relax their guard around each other. But the nights changed the most. If either stayed at the other’s house before the kiss, they slept on the couch. Neither wanted to push the other. The only time they’d really consciously shared a bed—not counting the times Spencer had fallen, exhausted, into the bed—was _that_ night. That had changed.

Aaron initiated. He invited Spencer to his apartment and when Spencer had begun to doze off on the couch with a documentary on raptors playing quietly in the background, he took his hand and led him to the bedroom. Sleepy and content, Spencer allowed himself to be led. “Aaron,” he murmured, watching his friend strip down into his boxers and a loose cotton tee. “We shouldn’t…”

“Just sleeping,” Aaron said firmly. “You’re exhausted. You’re working too hard. And…” He swallowed, his throat shifting with the movement. “…and I want to hold you.”

Oh. _Oh._ There was a leap in Spencer’s chest that was warm and bubbly, and he stepped forward and kissed the other man. Without compunction, bringing his hands up to Aaron’s face and drawing their mouths together, slotting his lips over Aaron’s lower lip and breathing him in intently. Lingering. Pausing. Their hearts thudded and Aaron’s hands were skating over his back, fingers tracing his spine through his shirt.

“Come to bed with me,” Aaron murmured, his head dipped forward and his eyes soft and half-closed.

“Okay.” Spencer stripped in a daze, and it was nothing like he’d had before. Never this quiet and meaningful. His fingers fumbled the buttons of his button-down and Aaron helped, leaving him shirtless. He helped with the belt buckle as well, making a low noise in his throat as Spencer stood passively and let him slide his trousers down over his hips to reveal his briefs. Teasing fingers skated over the cotton. Spencer drew a sharp breath in, startled but not unpleasantly so, and felt himself twitch with interest at the curious touch. “Aaron?”

Aaron looked guilty, using a hand to push his silky-black hair out of his face. “I’ve never undressed a man before,” he said, laughing huskily. “Honestly, I do really just want to sleep, but you’re…” He didn’t have to complete that sentence. There was a patch of wet fabric tenting his boxers to answer how he felt about seeing Spencer like this.

Spencer stepped closer, pressing their bodies together and cupping Aaron’s face to kiss him again. Just lips at first, moving over each other as though they’d learned the other already, until Aaron moaned and tapped his hips forward. A hard weight pressed against Spencer’s leg and he let his thigh slip forward, giving some friction, deepening the kiss and feeling the warm bubble of heat begin to pool and press down to pull his own cock against the other man. _We should stop,_ Spencer knew he’d have to say in a moment before they both went too far—a shiver of dark memory slid a cold touch down his spine as he remembered what he could lose here if he was thoughtless once more—but he was for a moment completely transfixed by the delicious mix of desire and confusion working across Aaron’s sharp features as he realized he was arousing Spencer in turn. His hips bumped forward again, rubbed gently, rocked, and Aaron murmured something to himself that was almost _so good._

“Can I?” Aaron whispered, his fingers skating across the front of Spencer’s briefs. He was shivering, Spencer noted, his eyes both greedy and wary. Then _oh_ they slipped and pressed down and Spencer wanted to say yes, almost said yes, especially as he felt Aaron’s cock stiffen rapidly as he realized what he’d felt.

But he shook his head, dizzy and giddy and scarily close to admitting that he loved this man, if he was even capable of feeling that anymore. “No,” he whispered, feeling Aaron jerk back and soften rapidly as he panicked at the denial. “Aaron, I… god, I want you to. I do. But we…”

“Need to play it slow,” Aaron finished, sinking slowly to the bed and drawing Spencer down with him. “Oh. I know, I remember, I just, _oh_ —”

Oh, because Spencer was kissing him again. They hit the bed and rolled together, tangled hopelessly, half-aroused and pretending they weren’t taking every opportunity to ‘accidentally’ brush against the other. Mouths locked and hands twined and hearts hammering, Spencer couldn’t feel guilty or wrong about this when Aaron was making such gorgeous, captivating noises, when he looked so utterly happy, when Spencer himself was feeling so safe and guarded and warm… and he drew Aaron into a kiss just like their first, one that blistered. Dragged his fingers through the other man’s hair and curled a leg around him, pulling them tight and not allowing them the chance to breathe. It was a kiss that said what he couldn’t. It was a kiss he’d never given anyone, not even—a kiss that said _I’m choosing you over oxygen_ and he’d never felt more alive. Breaking apart for panting breaths that barely completed before they were at each other again, until Spencer was giddy, he was flushed, their hearts were jackrabbiting, and the bed whispered a little under their desperate, rocking movements as their bodies shifted gently against each other.

Aaron made a sudden harsh noise, twitching violently in Spencer’s grip as though trying to escape. Spencer almost panicked, almost went to let go, and then he realized what he’d done.

“It’s okay,” he breathed into the other man’s mouth, feeling him shuddering with the effort it was taking to hold on, “god, Aaron, it’s okay. It’s okay. I—” _I’m doing it again_ “I don’t mind, please, please…” And he shoved back the sick roll of guilt that did _not_ belong in their bed, and let his thigh ease down between Aaron’s leg as something for the man to press _hard_ up against as he came. A sudden hot warmth pooling between them and it was as though Aaron had explosively released a breath he’d been holding for minutes, sagging down into the mattress with his eyes huge and mouth bitten pink.

For a single, haunting moment, Spencer almost panicked. He almost let the panic swell and take this from them.

Then he pushed it aside. The fact that this was very nearly sex—very nearly, he called it, before they were really just getting themselves off, technically, with a _tiny_ bit of help—was unimportant. It was being together that was important. This was _nothing_ like Clary.

Maybe that night had been of some worth after all.

“Spence,” Aaron murmured, shame at losing control colouring his cheeks, “I…”

Spencer didn’t want him to feel ashamed or less in this moment. He shoved the guilt and the fear aside and pulled Aaron tighter, ignoring the wet press of silk against his leg, and murmured, “I need a little help. Just kiss me, please.” He let his hand skate down as he spoke, his intention obvious. “Just focus on my face, my mouth, please…”

“Yes,” Aaron breathed, and his pupils were so huge Spencer felt like he was drowning, his eyes skipping from latched onto Spencer’s mouth to darting downwards curiously. Spencer curled his body so Aaron could watch if he wished, wiggling his briefs down and taking himself in hand and thinking of the way Aaron had felt as he’d come.

They kept kissing, Aaron sleepy and fumbly, his hands seemingly unsure of where to settle, and Spencer half-distracted by his hand around his cock. Silence but for the sound of their lips shifting together, Aaron’s soft breathing, Spencer beginning to pant a little, the whisper of skin moving faster on skin and the sheets rustling under them. They kept kissing until Spencer’s muscles were tightening, his body pulling in, and—

Aaron’s hand shifted—not touching, but close—and Spencer couldn’t stop from twitching his hips a little as he came with Aaron’s name on his lips, looking down and wincing as he noted the white splatter on the other man’s fingers.

“Sor—” he began, but Aaron covered his mouth with his and kissed him frantically.

“So good, that was so good,” Aaron was panting, almost aroused again already. “Oh god, one day I’m going to feel that properly, please, _please_.”

“Yes,” Spencer promised, using his clean hand to draw the other man close and his heart tapping out _I’m falling in love with you, I’ll give you anything you want,_ in his chest. “Anything.”

If only he could be sure Aaron felt the same…

 

* * *

 

_I’m in love!_ Aaron had yelled, and then fallen on his drunk ass.

Spencer had hauled him home, made him shower, almost sexually assaulted his drunken friend, and then put him to bed—after making him remove the bowtie. Still shivering a little at what could have almost happened. But didn’t. It didn’t happen. Spencer had stopped it. And it wasn’t like the night they’d spent together because tonight Aaron was drunk and new to this kind of thing and—

_You didn’t hurt him,_ Spencer told himself firmly, as though yelling at the echo chamber that was his brain to shut up. _You wouldn’t do that to someone else._

_But you’ve done it before,_ his brain replied pertly.

Angrily, Spencer curled around the deeply asleep Aaron, wrinkling his nose at the scent of toothpaste and alcohol on the other man’s breath, and forced himself to think of nothing. Not the jazz club, not the shouted _I’m in love_ that he couldn’t dare to hope was real, not the almost… not any of it.

When he drifted into the hazy almost-awake, there was a warm, firm weight over his lax body, and a mouth humming against his throat. Sleepy and too out of it to be alarmed, he pressed closer and hummed back contentedly. _Aaron,_ a part of his brain confirmed, relaxing. They drifted again… and twitched as they scented alcohol. Whiskey. A heavy weight. A sharp burn and a feeling of falling, of slipping out of his own loose-limbed body as it stopped responding. The weight pressed down. The teeth nipped.

_You’re drunk,_ murmured the voice. Was he? He didn’t remember drinking that much. He twitched again as that hand skated along his side, settling on his hip. _Gorgeous little thing._

He jerked awake with a loud noise gusting out of him, as though a soundless scream in his dream had broken through to reality. Despite the cool breeze slipping in through the partially open window, he was coated in sticky sweat, his nose scrunching unhappily at the stink of his fear. Swallowing around a tight throat, he stared at the dark shadows of the room as they grew and twisted and…

_A first is special._

Jerked awake again, this time rolling upright onto his knees with a sharp mewl. Aaron slept on, the moonlight drifting through the open window to cast odd lines on his slack face. Spencer stared at him blankly, his heart thumping and making him feel sick and unsteady, as though the thump of it was echoing throughout his whole body.

Spencer staggered up, the mattress dipping under his stumbling feet. Not steady at all, he tottered like a drunk as he weaved across the empty room and fumbled his way out of the room like he was drowning. Hot. It was too hot tonight, sweat lining his face and sticking his bare arms to his chest. The apartment was silent but he was loud as he accidently hit his shoulder on the hallway door before falling into the bathroom and twisting on the cold tap in the shower.

He curled on the tiles, closing his eyes and pressing them to his knees with his back to the wall. The water beat down, icy and steady on his spine and the back of his neck, and with the cold water came a rush of clarity. He was awake. He was awake, he hadn’t hurt Aaron, he would _never_ hurt Aaron, and there was nothing here that would hurt him.

So why was he so scared still?

The door clicked open and he froze, eyes still pressed into his knees so hard he could see red flashes against the lids and burning hot despite the cold water. The taps turned to off, someone looming overhead. How would he explain this, how could he possibly explain this without seeming absolutely insane—

“Common practise is to take your pants off before showering,” Ethan said quietly, squatting next to him. Spencer looked up, blinking blearily, his gut unknotting as he accepted that it wasn’t Aaron—and Ethan had seen him far, far worse. “Am I telling Aaron about this? You need _help,_ kid…”

“No, please,” Spencer squeaked, and then tumbled forward into his friend’s arms, shuddering and shaking and dripping all over his flannel pyjamas. “Please no…I know. I know I do. I will. One day. Not yet. Please…” Ethan held him until he was done panicking, done crying, and Spencer knew they’d never speak of it again. He was thankful for that.

He was thankful for Ethan.


	31. October, 2001

Ethan kept up a mantra of _you need help_ that was driving Spencer absolutely insane, but he couldn’t really blame him. October brought with it autumn and Spencer’s favourite time of year and it brought his birthday and Halloween, but it also brought nightmares. And with the nightmares came everything else awful that always trailed behind those stubbornly persistent memories. But if there was one thing he _had_ learned, it was that Ethan was there for him. And he had to trust in that.

“I’m craving,” he admitted one morning, waking his housemate up with two careful knocks on his door.

Ethan stared sleepily at him from the bed, brow furrowed. The other half of the bed was taken up by clothes and books and what looked like his keyboard, tangled in the folds of bedding. Spencer was too exhausted from being drowned over and over again in his dreams to make a lewd comment about it. “Bad?” he asked.

Spencer just nodded.

There were bad nights that he stayed with Ethan, on one condition. “You don’t hide this from Aaron,” Ethan said firmly, so Spencer didn’t.

And it was a heartbreaking conversation because it was an _easy_ conversation—a chilling reminder that maybe Aaron knew more about addiction than he was letting on, because he didn’t push and he didn’t pull and all he said was, “You call me if you need me, and don’t do this alone.”

There were bad nights he spent with Aaron. He hated those.

They always fought.

Angry that Aaron was seeing him like that and angry that he was like this to begin with, Spencer couldn’t help but lash out furiously at everything around him. Ethan knew this. He’d lash back or he’d laugh Spencer down, but Aaron didn’t. Aaron would just watch quietly and take every angry word Spencer threw his way, drawing them down into some deep secret place within himself where Spencer knew he was probably examining them over and over and over again. And that made him angry too, because it meant he was hurting Aaron, still hurting, always hurting, and it culminated in him snarling, “I wish I’d never met you!” and locking himself out on the fire escape for seven hours.

On the seventh hour, Aaron joined him. They sat in silence with frost curling in front of their mouths and noses as they breathed, autumn settling around them. The city was loud as it settled into the night, cars honking and sirens wailing and all the noises that came with urban living. Oddly soothing, despite the gritty realism of it all. Spencer wiggled. His ass was frozen, the gridding digging into his butt and thigh. Aaron didn’t look comfortable either.

“You’re shivering,” Aaron said quietly, and scooted forward without another word. Spencer didn’t fight him, just let him wrap an arm around him, tucking his peacoat around Spencer’s shoulders so they were both huddled inside. They watched the dim glint of pollution-obscured stars above as the night quietened. The lights from apartments dulled around them, flickering out, until they were left alone in the dark. It was midnight. And then it was one a.m.

And then it was the darkest point of the morning. Spencer thought Aaron might be dozing. His nose was red with the cold and Spencer couldn’t feel his face. Despite this, he tugged his gloved hands from his lap and reached down to tangle his fingers around Aaron’s. It felt like a time for talking. “The darkest hour of the year would be at local midnight in midwinter,” he murmured, feeling Aaron start awake against him, turning his head to press his mouth against his hair, “but only if the moon is new and Venus is below the horizon. I wonder how often that combination occurs, if ever.”

Aaron was quiet for the longest time. “I prefer the night,” he rumbled suddenly, his voice a deep baritone hum that thrummed through Spencer’s chest. “Some of my best memories are at night. And it’s always easy to think of them when the world is this calm, this… secret.”

He was looking at the sky, so Spencer saw the glinting spark of yellow-white as a meteoroid dashed across the midnight blue and burned in the atmosphere. He jumped, Aaron following his eyes and making a soft noise of shock as he saw the shooting star. “What memories?” Spencer asked, his voice catching as he watched the tail vanish into the night.

A shuddering breath. “A storm,” Aaron murmured. “Laying on a broken fence watching a storm. A boy on that fence. Do you know, every time I’ve been scared or alone or I’ve doubted myself… I’ve remembered that boy on the fence. The bravest boy I knew.”

“Brave?” The star was gone. Spencer missed it. “He was terrified. That’s not brave. Imagine being frightened of a fence…”

“Yeah, he was. And he walked towards me anyway.” Aaron wasn’t watching the sky anymore, so he missed the second star, trailing grimly after the first. Spencer didn’t mention it. The thought of them burning apart felt too morbidly beautiful to mention right now. And to mention it would be to acknowledge that Aaron was looking straight at him, something wild in his eyes. “Even though he was scared, he still trusted me enough to let me pull him out onto the edge. If he can face that fear… I can too.”

There were clouds crowding in now, hiding the sky from view. Spencer looked away finally, meeting Aaron’s gaze and almost drowning in what he saw there.

A dog barked. It silenced quickly. A car backfired, making them both twitch with shock.

Spencer kissed him. Lips too numb to kiss for long, hands too frozen to do more than press against that boldly beating heart, it was a frozen kiss on a rickety fire-escape at an hour of night too dark to see the dawn. No one could see them. They were entirely alone in the world.

“I have nightmares,” he said, because Aaron was right. It was easy to talk when they felt this alone. “Constant nightmares. They’re horrifying, but I never want to wake from them because I’m worried I will and you won’t be there… I couldn’t have walked out onto that fence without you, you know. I’m only brave when you’re around.”

Aaron was silent for a second, his breath puffing damp air onto Spencer’s cheek and leaving him feeling oddly thawed. A bird began to noisily call nearby. The night was almost over.

“One day you’ll see that you’re more than what I made of you,” said Aaron quietly, and they waited for the dawn together.


	32. December, 2001

It was still there.

Rhosgobel.

He stepped into the clearing as a twenty-year old frozen with fear and his nightmarish past and felt that all fall away. Aaron was minutes behind but it felt like years, as Spencer caught his breath and his memory and found himself ten again.

It was the same. The same as it had always been. The same wooden fort, the same glint of sun sparkling from the chain-link fence, throwing silver lights to dance on his retinas. The same shadowed hints of magic in the dark corners of the canopy. The same ever-lasting feeling of being ten and alive and sure of the companion beside you.

He knew, absolutely, in that moment that if he didn’t breathe, didn’t move, and waited for Aaron to step out beside him… they could re-find what they’d lost.

“It’s still here,” he breathed, walking further into the clearing as a boy and not a man. Letting the moment linger. Never releasing that magical breath.

He’d never stopped believing in magic, not ever.

It was a heartbeat to crouch and peer into the dusty space of their forgotten home, and to see what was new and what was old. And another moment to release that breath with a _whompf_ and a laugh as he found the sign. When he turned around to show Aaron, Aaron was a man as well but his eyes were still wide with wonder.

It was a haunting moment of realizing some things time couldn’t touch.

 

* * *

 

Neither of them had a home they wanted to go to for Christmas, so they spent it with each other. Their first Christmas together. Spence had demanded they spend it at his apartment, despite the broken heating and questionable furnishings.

“Are you sure?” Aaron had asked warily, probably thinking of the comfort of his home, but Spencer was adamant. It was _his_ turn to give back. And he had a plan.

“Woah,” said Aaron, stopping in the doorway. “Holy… _woah_.”

Spencer jittered about his construction, nervously. It had taken him all day and most of his pay to get it right. Ethan was at his gram’s… the apartment was theirs. Outside, freezing rain lashed the windows in a steady drumming beat, the evidence of this beading along Aaron’s treated wool coat and dripping onto the frayed welcome mat. There was no going to Rhosgobel today, so Spencer had brought Rhosgobel to them.

“You’re going to have to, um, bear with me,” Spencer stammered, edging around the blanket fort he’d managed. It was structurally sound, with the ferns that Ethan usually kept in his room on his windowsill propped around it. He’d replaced the light-globe with a dimmer one tinted a harsher summer yellow, a rough sketch of their beetle friend propped up along the entrance of their ‘fort’. “It’s… a bit more blanket-y than what we’re used to. And you know, not really Rhosgobel. Plus, I couldn’t work out how to make the fence except with, well, those—” He pointed to a chain-link design of the fence made from white Christmas lights: “—and we’re going to have to not have a west side because the heater is there and it would be a little unsafe to have flammable material so close to the _mmmf_ —”

Aaron had taken two great steps across the room and pulled him into a fierce, rain-damp kiss that tasted of mint and the cold and Aaron and something smoky. Hands settled on his hip and tugged him close, fingers looping through the hoops of his bathrobe. “You’re amazing, fucking amazing,” Aaron managed through lips that were freezing to the touch, “Jesus, Spencer, look at this, look at this…”

“I just…” Spencer took a breath, grinning awkwardly to try to break the heavy mood settling over them, the powerful feeling of _something_ that had been following them around since their trip to the real Rhosgobel a week ago. “I’ve missed us… and I want _this_ Christmas to be something we could have had, if…”

“If things had gone how they should have gone,” Aaron finished gently, pulling them apart to trace a line down Spencer’s jaw with two trailing fingers. “It’s perfect, Spence. It’s going to be amazing. An amazing Christmas. Dibs sleeping in the fort, by the way.”

Spencer laughed. “I already put our bedding in there. Did you _seriously_ think we wouldn’t be?”

 

* * *

 

They missed the clock ticking over onto Christmas Day. Rain still nattered at the windows and the room was dark except for the silver glint of the Christmas lights on the wall behind them and the orange-yellow glow of the heater set away from their blanket cave. A portable radio played crackly Christmas carols in-between well-wishes for the holiday season. And the room was utterly, completely silent otherwise, except for the soft whisper of everything quiet that Spencer was determined that Aaron would hear.

“I love you,” he hummed along with the strains of _Hallelujah_ , on his back with Aaron carefully overtop. He reached up, found the stubbly jawline, closing his eyes for a moment as Aaron kissed his way up his hand. “I love you,” repeated, dropping that hand and reaching down to guide his boyfriend inside. “ _Ah_ , I love you,” again as the burn built and eased and Aaron’s expression turned vacantly delighted, eyes locked on Spencer’s face. His skin was a warm colour, flushed by the heater and the blankets over his shoulders that Spencer was careful to ensure didn’t slip from their bare bodies to expose them to the winter air, and flushed by the desire of this moment.

_Oh,_ breathed Aaron, and Spencer slipped his hand over his mouth. Dark eyes studied him, crinkled with humour, over the side of his hand. “I said no talking,” Spencer scolded gently. “It’s my turn to tell you. Over and over, to make up for all the times I _should_ have said it.”

Aaron shook the hand away, readjusting his leg for the awkward angle they were at. Spencer wiggled on the pillow he’d propped himself up on, hissing as this put him at exactly the right angle for Aaron to sway forward and bring a burst of heat rushing to pool between his needy hips. “You don’t need to reiterate your point endlessly for me to believe you,” Aaron murmured. “It’s not a graded point system.”

Spencer smiled vacantly, distracted because there was a hard pressure rhythmically tapping out a pattern against his prostate and he was very desperately focusing on not hurtling to a messy end. “I love you,” he said instead, with a wink and a moan, and Aaron responded by bowing his back so he could find Spencer’s mouth even as the position meant that he slipped almost free.

“Show me something else,” Aaron breathed instead of answering, his mouth slipping open as his hips quickened slightly. Spencer lifted his hips along with him, rolling into the man’s strokes and whimpering as Aaron brought his hand and curled it around Spencer’s cock, letting him rut up into a warm, closed fist. “Show me how you look when you’re losing control.”

Spencer shuddered. “You don’t want that,” he managed.

But the eyes that bored into his were firm and unyielding. “I do,” Aaron growled, a deep throbbing kind of growl from somewhere hidden within him, his eyes hooded as he began to slip into his own spiral of losing control. The hand that was around Spencer’s cock let go, sliding between Spencer’s splayed legs and brushing tentatively against his balls. “I really, really do, Spence. I want to do to you what you do to me.”

A little thrown by how fucking _fast_ Aaron learned things, all Spencer managed to squeak was, “Which is?”, right as the radio switched to _Jingle Bell Rock_ and earned itself a filthy glare from Aaron, who despised the song.

Aaron leaned close, sliding out and pausing with his cock a blunt, pressing pressure barely pushing within. Their mouths touched, once. Twice. Barely brushing together, just breathing in unison. Three times and this third time was a fast, frantic touch of lips as they crashed together and pulled apart, teeth catching Spencer’s lip as they went. “After the day you got me off on your floor,” Aaron told him quietly, “I couldn’t stop thinking about you.”

Spencer examined him, curious. “I was the same. You… you were appealing, and frig—”

“No.” Aaron so rarely cut him off that Spencer still instantly. In the fraught silence that followed that loud exclamation, they kissed once more. This time slow. This time heady. Aaron kissed like he was drinking in every last bit of the needy man beneath him, like he was enjoying the way Spencer was aroused and wriggling with his cock leaking onto his belly where they were pressed together and his hips trying to work their way down so that Aaron was inside him once more. “No, Spence, I mean _thinking_ about you.” He closed his eyes and took a breath, kissing again while still breathing, moaning when Spencer opened his lips to let him in. Their tongues darted together, tasting, trialling, and Spencer arched up into the kiss until he thought he might snap in two from the pressure. When Aaron spoke again, they were still kissing, each word punctuated by another brush of lips, another stolen breath: “I went home and thought about you in the shower, Spence, and I came so fucking _hard_ I had to sit down.”

Oh. _Oh_.

“Oh,” breathed Spencer. “You… oh…”

“So much,” Aaron hissed, his teeth together and eyes closed as though lost in a memory. His hips twitched forward, cock nudging in once more. “So, much. You were texting me one night, talking about being in bed, and I was replying the whole time hoping that you couldn’t tell I had one hand on my dick and I was getting myself off thinking about you doing the same. It got stupid, so stupid. You’d text me and wherever I was, I’d get hard.” His hips were rocking now, teasing, slipping further in with every rock, and Spencer thought maybe he’d forgotten how to breathe. “Sometimes I hinted at it, hinted so fucking much, because if I could pretend I was getting you off, god, fuck… you have no idea. There was one night… I called you because I needed to hear your voice and I was stupid and you’re just so goddamn _gorgeous,_ Spence… and you were talking about missing me and I was horny and hard and fucking my hand while imagining you doing the same…”

“I was,” Spencer blurted out, stammered. “Aaron, that night. You… I… I was pretending you were doing it deliberately. Getting me aroused. Talking to me like that.”

Aaron’s eyes flickered open and they were _fucked_. “Like I wanted you,” he purred, and slammed home. Spencer cried out, loud, maybe too loud, maybe not even words. “Like I _needed_ you.”

“Like you wanted to fuck me,” Spencer managed. This was insane. This was _insane_. His brain was misfiring, his body too turned on to know what was happening anymore, just that Aaron was moving faster now, his strokes erratic, his breath rattled and his heart stammering, and Spencer could make him come if he kept talking like this, kept admitting these things: “I knew, logically, you didn’t but I was pretending and I felt guilty but didn’t stop and then you made this noise, this stupid noise, and I—”

Aaron made the noise, the soft, sighing kind of _oh_ that was deep from his chest and almost painful to hear, his hips stalling and eyes lidded heavily, and Spencer couldn’t help the moan that squeezed out of his own mouth: “That noise,” he breathed, reaching his hands up and clinging to the hard torso above him, dragging it tight against him, dragging it deep. “That noise. You made that noise because you were coming. Because I did that to you. _Oh_.”

“Yes,” Aaron breathed, a long-low noise, and stopped moving with another low sigh as he began to pulse and throb into Spencer. “ _Spence_ , fuck, ah…”

Spencer was close. He was close enough that he could do this, he could follow, he could show Aaron exactly how good he made him feel. He just needed… “Is that true?” he managed, reaching between them to stroke himself and practically purring as Aaron’s hand came up sluggishly to help, his mind still focused on the impossibly slow pulse of his body into Spencer’s. “Did you need me?”

“So much,” Aaron choked, hips stuttering one final time as it came to a crashing end. “So, so much. I thought I was going f-fucking mad from wanting you, _fuck_ , come, Spence, come!” He slipped out of Spencer in a rush, moving with a startling rustle of blankets and a rush of cool air as he took their duvet with them, swooping down and bringing his mouth to Spencer’s cock, almost choking around it he took it so quickly.

It was more than enough. Spencer warned him, or tried to, choked out something that could have been _perfect_ , and then wound his fingers through his boyfriend’s hair as he came in a messy, hot rush into that clever, _wonderful_ mouth.

It was their first Christmas together, and Spencer was sure he’d never have one better.


	33. January, 2002

He was aiming for the chalk. Honestly, he _was_. Well, trying to aim for the chalk anyway.

“Why do I even have to do this?” Spencer grumbled, shaking hair out of his eyes and glaring down at the chalky Xs on their ratty carpet, spotting Ethan’s smirk out of the corner of his eye. “You don’t even need me helping! You just like laughing at me!”

“Nonsense,” Ethan said innocently. He finished his bottle of water, crinkling it loudly in his hands before lobbing it into the kitchen sink with a loud clatter of forks being knocked about. “Everyone needs to learn to tango, Spence.”

“But do I need to learn _now_?”

He was also trying, and failing, to keep the whine out of his voice.

Just to add insult to injury, Ethan effortlessly tangoed back over to him, unable to hide his shit-eating grin. “Yes. You’re _helping_.”

“Takes two to tango, skinny bit,” Elle called from where she was sprawled on the couch with her legs crossed and thrown over the back, bobbing along with _Cell Block Tango_ as it played for the billionth time. All Spencer could see of her was her jauntily dancing feet and the top of the _Playboy_ magazine she was paging through—which she must have brought, because as far as Spencer knew, neither he nor Ethan read it. “Get back in there. You almost didn’t look ridiculous that time.”

Spencer glared at her. Why was she even _here_? Seeing his damn shame—

“Come on, Mona,” Ethan coaxed, knocking Spencer’s feet back into position. “What don’t you enjoy murdering me?”

“If only,” Spencer muttered, before Ethan hurled him back into the dance ruthlessly. He wasn’t an easy partner, not when he had _reason_ to be dancing, and Spencer’s arms were aching from being hauled about as he went _Atrás_ when he should be going _Adelante._ Elle’s sniggers only added to the red flush working from his throat to his face, especially when he was tugged into a tight embrace with the man against him, upper bodies touching and his hand sweaty in Ethan’s.

“Your frame is sloppy,” Ethan murmured.

“Your face is sloppy,” Spencer sniped back, earning a snort that rumbled from Ethan’s chest and into his.

“Come on. What if Aaron wants to go dancing with you one day? Wouldn’t it be nice to startle him with your bangin’ dance moves?”

Elle cackled. “Only thing ‘bangin’’ in here is him falling over,” she said just loud enough for them to hear over the music that Spencer was starting to hear in his fucking _dreams_. He was seriously regretting the drunken dare he’d thrown at Ethan when they’d stumbled past the Auditions Available sign for the _Chicago_ musical playing in April. Back-up dancer or not, Ethan was determined to nail the part.

“I can’t do it,” Spencer hissed, scowling in the part when he was supposed to ‘smoulder’. Ethan’s painfully twisted face went well, since his girlfriend—Spencer, in this case—was currently having ‘artistic differences’ over him being alive, but Spencer was well-aware it was only because he was trying not to laugh.

“Okay, come on. We’ll start again. Follow my feet—slow…slow…quick-quick-slow. I’ll collect my foot—that means this. See? Stepping to the right with my left foot without moving diagonally—it comes up alongside the left first. Then we—”

Spencer took the chance to wiggle away from the firm arm holding him, right as someone was being shot in the song playing over and over. “I can hear my cell,” he said quickly, bolting for his room.

“Ah, you scared the kid away, Ethan,” Elle said, popping up. “Not everyone was born knowing how to corte, you know. Dancing isn’t ubiquitous to humankind.”

“Bullshit. Rhythm is instinctual.”

Spencer rolled his eyes, closing the door between him and them bickering, the beat of the song still rattling through. It was a welcome change from _All That Jazz_ , but as it turned out he was proud enough that failing so repeatedly at something was _infuriating._ And with Elle there to see every failure—why _was_ Elle spending so much time here lately, anyway? Not that he minded, since when she was here Ethan actually bothered to cook food other than sausages and mash but…

His cell was plugged into the outlet by his mattress, lighting up as he crouched to check for messages. Only two—one warning him he was wanted at work tonight, the other from Aaron. Aaron’s, of course, was first.

Priorities, after all.

_Someone came into work dressed as a robot. It was weird. Why are people so weird? Are you working tonight?_

Smirking, Spencer replied with a quick: _Yes, why do I never get any robots at VU? S.R._

_They know you’ll dismantle them to discover all their cyborgy secrets. Hang on, I’ll tell this one that you’re Sarah Connor. Maybe he’ll hunt you down to save you._

Spencer blinked. Read the message twice.

Considered that maybe it was time for a new boyfriend.

_…The Terminator was sent to *kill* Sarah Connor, Aaron. You just offered to have me assassinated. S.R._

Unplugging his cell, he stood with twin pops of his knees as they complained about what they knew he was about to do. Fun or not, he really did owe Ethan a lot more than some dance practise—however long Ethan wanted to play Mona and Lipschitz, he’d suffer through it. A reply buzzed through from Aaron as he stepped back out into the living room— _oops_. _My ultimate plan, foiled!_

“Nerd,” Spencer told his phone, hypocritically, probably. And then he looked up. And blinked.

Elle was a better smoulderer than he was.

And a better dancer.

And, apparently, although since he only had a sample pool of one time to compare it to, a better kisser too, if Ethan’s reaction was anything to go back. There was no doubt who was kissing who, as Ethan’s back thumped against the wall and he curled down into the woman’s arms, his face a strange cross between worried and…

Ecstatic. Spencer had never seen him look at _anything_ like what he looked at Elle. Not even his keyboard.

Feeling like he was probably looking in on something he shouldn’t be, Spencer retreated back into his room and let the door close softly. And stared down at his phone with his cheeks burning hot and his stomach doing a strange little sad/anxious/shocked twist that was probably _really_ inappropriate.

Well then.


	34. March, 2002

Elle’s eyes were on him, constantly. Not in ways that were blatantly noticeable. But, when he worked bar, she was there. Her gaze trailed as he’d finish and wander upstairs, only ceasing to burn when the door closed between them. She was the first to offer to help him with anything he needed if he was carrying a load of glassware back to the wet room or going to the walk-in for another crate of beer. Spencer was surprised when Ethan got her a job working bar—he wasn’t surprised when she seemed to take this as an excuse to stick even closer to them.

To everyone else around them, it wasn’t as obvious. _She’s dating Ethan,_ Spencer thought as he sorted through empty bottles and cans into their respective bins, music from someone’s iPod speaker bopping tinnily from the front rooms where clean-up was underway after a busy night. _So, her being close to us doesn’t look that odd…_

Really, if someone wanted to get close to them, it was a clever move. And she watched Ethan just as much as she watched them.

_Maybe she as a kink for washed-up child prodigies,_ he thought wryly.

Maybe she had a kink for weirdos.

Shaking that disturbing thought off, he washed his hands off and dried them thoroughly, wincing as one of the bar girls walked past wiping wet streaks across her apron. He didn’t say anything though. They’d long ago reassured him that his ‘germ hysteria’ was a unique quirk none of them wanted in on.

“Reid, get a broom on the floor,” Dent barked, grumpy about having to oversee the downstairs tonight. “Some idiot got ice everywhere.”

“Sweeping ice, that’s very efficient,” Spencer muttered, but did as he was told. Dent was nice enough, but judging by the guy’s pupils, probably not responsive to logic tonight. He’d just sweep the ice. It’d make it easier to mop after anyway. But, then he stepped out of the washroom and his heart thumped in one great gallop of shock, broom knocking into the doorframe as his hand jerked back; entirely surprised by the man waiting for him.

“Spencer,” Elliot Kyle greeted him, nodding. “Come upstairs for a moment?”

Uh oh.

Spencer leaned the broom neatly against the wall and followed his boss upstairs.

And Elle watched him go.

 

* * *

 

“It’s a lucrative job,” Elliot said. It was just them alone in Elliot’s office, and Spencer was panicking. Not overtly. To panic overtly would be stupid. But Elliot was too smart, too watchful, too intuitive. He knew Spencer’s weak points and just how to apply pressure to them. “For me and for you, Spencer.”

“I’m being paid quite adequately,” Spencer murmured, scuffing his shoes against the carpet once before stopping, realizing he looked like a sulky child. “And you not being able to give me a timeline on how long it’s going to take—that’s concerning. I can’t afford to vanish for days on end, not during semester. I have colleagues at the college that will question that. Research partners—”

“A boyfriend?” Elliot’s voice was calm but Spencer’s heart jackrabbited, his pulse bounding as he registered the quiet acknowledgement of Aaron’s existence. “Don’t look like that—I’m no homophobe, Spencer. I’m not going to shun you for it.” But he smiled, and his smile was about as warm as a winter night and just as dark. Spencer watched it and thought numbly that he’d been wrong; the solstice had nothing on how dark a smile could be. “But I imagine he doesn’t like it when you… work.”

Spencer said nothing.

Elliot leaned closer. “Are you happy, Spencer?” he asked, his voice still a murmur and his eyes deep and blank. “I know the majority of your earnings goes towards paying your debts to this establishment… are there things you’re lacking that I could help you with? Utilities? Something nice for you and your new partner?” A pause and Spencer knew what was coming. “Something… recreational.”

It hissed on the desk as Elliot pushed it to him. _Shhhhshhshhh_ of glossed wood on glossed wood, the box plain and unadorned with the contents clinking gently. Spencer stared at it. Wanted it. Was shaking with fear, or with wanting, or with both. He couldn’t tell. “What is it?” he asked instead, although he should have said ‘no’.

Another smile, barely warmer than the last. “Just coke. That’s your flavour of choice at work, isn’t it? Retain your focus throughout the high… you’ve done some of you best work on it. If you can work faster, work harder, we could finish the job quicker…”

Spencer went to shake his head. He could never hide a drug habit from Aaron—not with his levels of dependency and Ethan’s eagle-eye for his behaviour when high. And no matter how nice the high was, it wasn’t worth this new thing he had. This old thing.

Whatever his thing was with Aaron, that was worth more than some liquid in a glass vial.

“I’ll exorcise your debts, sans pay of course. You do this one job for me, Spence, and we’re square.”

That would free him from them two years earlier than working for them would. Spencer blinked, and then he calculated. And shivered. Because what the fuck did they want him to do that would make that worth it for Elliot?

How was he going to recoup the loss of Spencer’s debts?

But that didn’t really matter, did it? Spencer couldn’t turn that offer down. He’d always had a deadline on how long they’d let him slowly repay them… and the _your boyfriend_ still lingered. Ethan had gotten hurt once, standing between Spencer and his just desserts. Thinking of Aaron in Ethan’s place, Aaron hurt, Aaron _bleeding…_

“Okay.”

But it was worse than he’d expected. It had only taken him a day to work through the rudimentary code they’d been using to hide what they were working on, and another day to find Elliot’s fingerprints all over it. VU was neck-deep in this organization, and this organisation was trafficking _people._

“Smoke break,” he requested, and Dent let him out. It’d be stupid to let him smoke in the tiny, dimly lit room filled with the sheer amount of flammable material in there. And, to Spencer’s grim delight, he walked downstairs and outside without showing an iota of the strain he was feeling.

This wasn’t drugs. It wasn’t dirty money. It wasn’t anything he could pretend was victimless—even if he logically knew otherwise. It was the human condition to prioritise the in-group over the out-group, and until now his focus had been on his small collection of humans he was responsible for. He’d gotten very good at blocking others out, since Connors.

But this?

Could he block this out? Every five-digit string in multiples of eight was another life, another person too tangled up in debt and coercion to extract themselves. Each of those five-digit strings had, he knew, other five-digit strings who were part of _their_ in-group. Numbers didn’t have families and wives and mothers and hopes and dreams and, maybe, maybe some of those five-digit strings loved music and dancing or had once made a fort with a special friend…

He broke outside into a sharp spring rain. The clouds overhead were orange and black, reflected light from the bright city below making them glow. Somewhere near DC, dusty fields desperate for the rain that fell on DC’s concrete streets were losing their topsoil to the cause of creating this nightmarish hellfire glow. Spence stared up at it and focused on keeping his eyes open against the stinging drops.

“You know, they say turkeys are so stupid that if you leave them outside in the rain, they’ll drown looking up at the sky just like that.” Elle’s voice was sharp enough to cut through the patter of rain on asphalt. Spencer dropped his gaze and found Ethan sitting back under the rough rain-shelter the club had erected for smokers, Elle perched on his knee with an arm slung casually around his neck and one cigarette between them. Ethan’s gaze was wary.

“That’s a myth,” Spencer stammered, shaking water from his hair and only succeeding in having it slap wetly onto his forehead. “What are you doing out here?”

“Smoking,” Ethan replied. “What are _you_ doing out here?”

_Hoping to drown,_ Spencer thought miserably. “Breathing,” he snapped. “It’s too close in there.” His eyes squeezed shut, he could feel the muscles in his arms tightening as his fists clenched, his shoulders shaking. Too close to a panic attack to hide it. “I needed a breather.”

A rustle of cloth almost inaudible in the rain. Spencer kept his eyes shut until the hand curled around his bicep and led him out into the rain, across the car park and against a neighbouring wall, tucked back under the rain splashing down from the overhead above. He’d had to open his eyes to avoid falling into a puddle or walking into a car, but he’d known who it was first anyway. Smoke and alcohol and cologne: he knew Ethan’s scent just as well as he knew the touch of the hand against him.

“Something’s scared you.” Ethan’s eyes stripped him down and left him open, just like Aaron’s did but without any of the care. Love, yes, but not care. Ethan knew not to be gentle when he needed to be rough. “Is this what they were making you do? Again? The—”

“Don’t,” Spencer hissed, and because he was cold and needed an anchor of something, he reached up and tightened his fingers through Ethan’s sopping shirt. “Don’t talk about it, fuck. You’ll get us both ki—” And he stopped, because that was admitting it. The cold, ice gaze. Elliot’s desperate offer. It wasn’t that he was recouping a loss. It was that he was _avoiding_ it. Spencer twitched as it clicked. Or maybe it had clicked a while ago. None of these jobs were pots that Elliot had ever wanted his fingers in—too high-profile, too far to fall. And Elliot Kyle wasn’t a man who liked to fall.

Spencer was being set up to stop that fall or, if necessary, take it for him.

_Killed_ , he’d almost said, because this was how it ended, wasn’t it? Spencer’s undeniable fingerprints all over all their dirty business, nice and clean for when his body showed up in the Potomac with a nine gauge between his eyes. _Don’t look here, because our mastermind is dead,_ that body would say. Put down like a rabid dog when his usefulness was outweighed by the damage he’d inflict if allowed to roam.

His head smacked the brick with a starburst of white and orange. He gasped, twisted, fingers reaching back to tangle through his knotty hair, blinking away spots as his eyes complained about the flashlight being shone into them. Ethan. Ethan with the light on his cell turned on, leaning close and crowding closer, a dark shadow against the bright white. “Sorry,” he hissed, lowering his voice. “You were freaking out. What the fuck is going on, Spence? Are you in trouble? More trouble? _Tell_ me!”

“Did Elle put you up to this?” Spencer asked, his vision still spotty but more because he couldn’t seem to catch his breath rather than any fault with his head. He needed to throw Ethan off, but he couldn’t, he didn’t know how, he couldn’t _think_ though the crushing _they know about Aaron and your mom and—_

“To what? Being your friend? No, I was the stupid fuck who did that, apparently. Spencer. Stop glazing out. Come on—I’ve helped you with shit before. Talk to me.”

Deflect. Distract.

“Why are you sleeping with her?” Spence rambled, trying to twist free, his shoulders scraping painfully on the brick and his foot slipping into a puddle. _Slosh_. Wet socks. Brilliant. “You don’t like women.”

Ethan’s eyebrow shot up. “I like woman just fine,” he retorted hotly. “This is irrelevant—”

“You don’t like _sex_. You told me, when we were drunk. You complained about having to—”

Ethan swallowed so loud that Spencer heard it. “Irrelevant,” he repeated slowly with a voice like a growl in the dark.

It was cowardly and simple to cast his gaze down, to look sadly at the ground. “I don’t want you forcing yourself into something for a relationship with a woman who doesn’t appreciate that sacrifice,” Spencer murmuring, thinning his mouth into a miserable line. “You love her, or you have some approximation of the feeling, but she doesn’t feel the same. How long will the novelty of your relationship outweigh the tediousness of forcing yourself to complete sexual acts with her for no—”

He deserved the shove. “Firstly, you’re a fucking shithead when you’re trying to wiggle out of something,” Ethan snapped. “And second, have I told you recently how fucked in the head you are, kid? Because you are. Relationships mean _compromise_. We compromise—I ain’t forcing shit and don’t be a cunt saying otherwise when you don’t know _anything_ about us.”

“What does she compromise for you?” On one hand, he’d successfully changed the subject from him. On the other, Ethan looked about as angry as Spencer had ever seen him, without the addition of drugs. “How do you even know she’s who she says she is?”

With a snort, Ethan strode away. Spencer watched him go, feeling a little like he’d found a barely healed wound in his friend and dug his fingers in deep. Ethan didn’t open up easily, and when he did, he seemed to find the worst people to do it to. Spencer, Elle… neither would be good for him.

As though summoned, Elle stood as Spencer walked back towards the club. She’d watched Ethan storm inside without moving, clearly waiting for Spencer to re-join them. And, his work above hovering over his head, Spencer found it easy to hate her just as much as he liked her. She was sharp and fun with a wicked sense of humour—but she was also closed off, withdrawn, and there was something more to the way she watched them…

In another life, maybe he’d have called her a friend.

“Sorry, gotta get back to work,” he cut her off as she opened her mouth to say something, probably scathing. “If I was paid to piss Ethan off, I’d have a nicer bed by now.”

Her brown eyes studied him, manipulatively gentle. “What do you do up there, boyo?” she asked softly. “What do you do that gets you looking so old in the eyes when you’re barely new?”

It was a whim. Part because he was a rabbit in a trap lashing out at the hunter who’d caught him, at a tree nearby, at anything he thought might release him. Partly because he was hoping that the _something_ about her was what he’d idly considered it being, in the quiet parts of the night when Aaron held him close and he could feel safe enough to hope. And partly because if she wasn’t that thing, then she was still becoming a part of Ethan’s life—and he needed to know if she’d hurt him, if given the chance.

He found the part of himself that liked it when he was high and stepped closer to her, smiling in a way he knew was promising and sly, and murmured, _maybe one day I’ll take you up there and show you… for a price._ His mouth barely an inch from the corner of hers and their eyes locked. Chests brushing together as they breathed; her heart didn’t budge an inch.

“Maybe you should,” she replied, and his heart sunk and skipped all at once. He didn’t know what it meant.

Not yet.


	35. April, 2002

Spencer was glad the Source was dim enough that no one could see his right-at-the-snuggly-side-of-tipsy boyfriend trying to be sneaky about grabbing his ass between seat and butt. Aaron had, at some point, slumped slightly onto his shoulder and then slumped slightly more onto his shoulder and then slumped _completely_ onto his shoulder, and was now trying to make this experience excruciating for Spencer as he nipped and nuzzled at his ear and hairline.

Spencer was also glad they’d taken a seat on the back row.

“Stop it,” he hissed, trying to push Aaron’s hand away and only succeeding in tangling them together and flushing warm and giddy as they held hands in almost-public. “You’re going to get us jumped.”

“We’re at a musical,” Aaron murmured, his voice deep and honey-dark. “This is the _least_ likely place to get gay bashed.”

“You’re going to make me miss Ethan’s parts,” Spencer countered, which was a real danger. Spencer wasn’t great at situational awareness when his companion was as focused as Aaron was on making his damn dick hard.

Aaron, reminded they were there for a reason, paused, turning his head back towards the front with his chin resting neatly on Spencer’s head. Spencer could feel his breaths ruffling his hair on the way out. Their hands clung tighter. The music crashed loudly and Spence took the chance to turn his head, ducking out from under Aaron’s and quickly kissing him once. Mistake. Aaron didn’t want to be kissed once. The kiss turned lingering, turned hesitant, turned into the quiet little trailing kisses that were more nudges than embraces as both leaned together and forgot to breathe. And for a lingering moment, Spencer forget everything around him: the clapping crowd, the piece just finished, Kate and the others to their side…

An elbow jabbed him. Hard.

“Ow.” He turned and frowned at Elle.

“Didn’t want you guys to start fucking next to me,” she retorted. “Hands on yourselves, buckos.”

“No fun,” Aaron grumbled, and his face was flushed all pink and happy, his eyes glittering. Spencer looked at him as he smiled shyly, trying to wink and forgetting which eye he was closing and winking both instead, before looking confused about what had gone wrong.

“I love you,” said Spencer.

“Gross,” said Elle.

Aaron just smiled wider and tugged his hand back, clinging tight.

And for a while, Spencer figured everything could be okay.

After the show, Spencer surrendered Aaron to Simon’s temporary custody—at least until he got him home and showed him _just_ how much Spencer adored him—and went to find Ethan, still brimming with endorphins from the rush of the show and the night and what was still to come. Elle had beaten him to the side of the stage, where small groups of performers were breaking away to chat to family and friends in the crowd.

Standing side by side, their eyes on the stage, Elle said, “He was great, wasn’t he? I mean, I knew he was… good. But up there, on stage… he really loves this stuff. It’s like he’s just remembering that…”

Spencer twitched a bit, hearing something odd in her voice and glancing at her. As always, she was unreadable, at least by him. “He’s always brilliant,” he said loyally, and then because he wasn’t always kind, “Don’t hurt him.”

Sharp brown eyes turned to face him, narrowing. She didn’t turn her body, just her head, and somehow that was more threatening. Like a hawk snapping its gaze around to zero in on a mouse. “Now, why would you say that?” she asked, like she didn’t really expect an answer.

Spencer shrugged. Ethan was bounding towards them, wide grin barely marred by the sweat-streaked stage makeup he was caked in. His eyes smoky-dark in their expertly lined mascara, cheeks contoured sharply: Spencer would have to be blind to miss the appeal. “He’s easy to hurt,” he said, and realized it was true.

Far too true.


	36. May, 2002

When it happened, it was because it had to. Elliot was looking cornered these days: cornered and desperate. Spencer knew that somewhere there was a blade hovering over their heads, and he knew he was in every firing line. His math on the books, his prints on ledgers and communications for countless illicit services… he might be doing it to keep his own head above water, but he was increasingly aware that he was standing on the shoulders of others to do so.

He waited until Elle was alone behind bar one night after the front closed, and then he whispered up close behind her and slid his hand along her arm. She stiffened, hissed angrily, and then froze when she saw his face.

He knew he looked desperate. He knew he looked scared. He knew he wasn’t exuding the calm confidence he wanted to right now, and he knew the message he’d received upon coming into work today— _reconsider my offer, Spencer_ —wasn’t really a reminder so much of a threat. That was written all over him.

If he didn’t end this now, he was going to drag Aaron down with him.

Because of this, he made sure he looked nothing like himself as he faced her. If she was who he thought she was, she’d understand the need.

“Want to come upstairs?” he asked, and swallowed hard. His voice rasped. “Tomorrow. After work. For a price.”

“What’s the price?” she asked him softly, her eyes on the door leading to the backrooms.

“Obedience.”

He needed her to do this.

She did.

 

* * *

 

Dent offered them drugs, of course he did, and without even commenting on Spencer’s decision to bring Elle upstairs. Delighted that Spencer seemed to be slipping easily back into their fold, and perhaps considering how well Elle would play along if they hooked her as well. VU always needed pretty, willing ‘escorts’, especially female, exotic, reliant. Elliot just seemed… relieved.

And Spencer played their game as they walked together down the halls that were dimmed enough that being someone else was easy. Aaron could never see him like this.

Ethan could never see this.

Spencer curled close to Elle’s ear, making it look possessive and hungry. Making it look like the man he was when he was high—needy and desperate, his fingers curling around her belt buckle and tugging her around to face him. “Accept,” he rumbled in a voice he knew wouldn’t carry, directly into her ear, nibbling at the lobe and almost choking on her perfume. It smelled of spice and sweat and a hint of Ethan: scented with notes of _betrayal._ “They like us pliant.”

It was true. He didn’t know from experience—thankfully—but he’d been around them long enough to know this. Clary had used to work here, before she’d gotten too battered to suit, and she’d told him all their tricks. How they used coke because it blew the pupils out prettier than MDMA did, and was less likely to make them useless in the sack. That the comelier girls—and men, several, Elliot knew his client’s tastes—worked earlier in the night, before coke and alcohol blurred the room. That they weren’t hookers, they were ‘escorts’ who sometimes got carried away…

This was Elliot’s game. Sex and drugs and the addictive power of both mixed together in a smoky nightclub with a discordant beat. A few gambling rooms for spice. It wasn’t the shit he’d been shovelling onto Spencer’s shoes for the past few months, not at all. They were all in over their heads. He desperately hoped that Elle was some kind of life-raft, at least for him. If not for him, for Ethan. For Aaron.

“Sure,” Elle said with a laugh, tilting her head back cockily. He took the chance to lick a line down her throat. Her heartbeat didn’t change. She was composed, despite the way she relaxed back into him.

“Steady on, kid,” Dent teased. “I told you—I’d give you a good night. Don’t blow it all at once. Over here.”

They followed him to a corner booth, one with curtains and high-backed walls. Spencer let Elle slide in first, following and crowding close, tossing a glance back at Dent that told him to _leave_. A box scraped across the table to them, shoved from Dent’s hands. Spencer’s heart skipped a beat; he knew Elle felt it go, felt it quicken. Against his side, he felt her twist and peer down at it as his hands set up a rapid stroking motion down her side, bump bump bumping over her ribs.

“Gift from the boss,” Dent was saying, but Spencer’s focus had narrowed to that box, the familiar glossy top. He snicked it open. Elliot knew him. Multiple hypodermics. He hated reusing needles. “He’s glad you’re back, kid.” Glad he had a hold in him again, a way to haul Spencer back bodily even when the threat of his debts no longer lingered. Even if Spencer didn’t owe money, Elliot knew he could always use the drugs.

Always.

And still Dent hovered. Spencer doubted it was he who was so distrustful—likely he was under orders to keep an eye on the essential stranger Spencer had brought upstairs into one of their black rooms. But he wouldn’t watch them all night. There was time to be brought here, if Elle trusted him. If she was who he thought she was.

It was like a dream, filling the hypodermic. Watching the clear liquid fill it, releasing the plunger just enough to remove any bubbles, ensuring a clean injection. He knew how to play this game. Elle’s eyes watched him unendingly, recognising his smooth, learned movements, recognising the shake to his hands as he worked. He used his belt, looped it around her arm. He knew how to play this game… he licked at the crook of her elbow, where the skin was soft and unmarked, where he’d let the liquid he’d flicked clear of the hypodermic dribble. He did that because he’d done it before, in booths very much like this, to people very unlike the one he was with, and also a little because god he fucking wanted to. It was a dribble—it wouldn’t get him high. But his body burned with the knowledge of it, and he knew the addict was showing when he paused and flicked his gaze up to her through his eyelashes. Her face was blank. Dent was talking, but he ignored him.

Instead, he slipped sideways, pressing her back into the booth and straddling her in one swift movement. It was a fierce, hungry move, and brought his mouth to hers. He almost kissed her, murmured, _trust me_ , and then actually kissed her and hoped Ethan wasn’t watching. Which was stupid. Ethan wasn’t up here, had never been up here, would _never_ be up here. Elle kissed back, eyes open, murmuring, _he’s not looking_ , into Spencer’s mouth—and Spencer slipped the needle into her relaxed arm, feeling her twitch and hiss, feeling her heartbeat finally pick up, before he slid it free without injecting. It was the work of a second after to hammer the plunger down and spray the contents into the crack between the leather, letting the needle drop to the table as she lolled back quietly under his hands, quieter than Elle had _ever_ been, and let him kiss her again.

“You kids have fun,” someone called, and then the curtain fell and they were alone. He twitched up, turning without climbing off of her and using a fresh, _empty_ needle on his own arm. His hands were shaking. He botched it, swearing. Blood pooled. She caught his hand, steadying it and helping slip the needle free from his already bruising arm.

“High hits in ten to fifteen after intravenous injection, maybe quicker if it’s your first, lasts from twenty minutes up to forty-five,” Spencer said quickly in a low tone, and then let his head loll against her shoulder, nausea hitting him. This could all be for nothing. Absolutely nothing, absolutely nothing, he’d ruined everything—Ethan, himself, his work—

His hand skimmed up, skimmed down, tugged her shirt tight. Just enough that he could see by the weak light in the booth the way her shirt sat unevenly over a wire-thin shape.

_Tha-thump_ went his heart against her chest. She finally spoke: “Why did you bring me here?” she whispered, bringing her hands to his head and pulling him against her as someone twitched the curtain aside and went away giggling, leaving it askew. To any casual onlooker, aware of the booth’s purpose, the position he was in left nothing to the imagination of what was going on below direct eyesight. They’d be incorrect in their assumptions. He’d never been less inclined to become aroused. “Why take such a risk?”

And he replied honestly, “I need help. I had to show you how much.”

He’d bled on her shirt. It was dripping. Drip drip drip and the yellow cotton bled too.

“I need help,” he choked again, and closed his eyes until it hurt. “Please, help us. Get us out.”

He felt her nod against his hair.

He didn’t cry.

 

* * *

 

Elle took him to her handler. They clung to each other and staggered and tripped until they were in her car, and then they sat in silence and didn’t look at each other. Spencer stayed in the car as they stopped at a non-descript gas station and Elle made a call on the payphone out front. A half-melted Mr. Goodbar sat uneaten in his lap, the vivid yellow wrapping curled where he’d picked at it. Head aching, mouth too dry, skin on all too tight: he could list every symptom he was feeling and really only come up with one conclusion.

God he wanted to be high right now.

The door cracked open, startling him out of tracing his eyes up the blue-white lines of his veins under bruised skin, and Elle leaned in and stared him down. He didn’t make a sound, just listened to the slow sound of the gum she’d bought herself as she’d paid for his candy and a drink to wash away the stink of the club. Hers was empty in the messy foot-well under his shoes. His sat unopened, collecting condensation in the cheap cup-holder she’d jammed into the vinyl dash.

The bubble she blew was probably just as much to annoy him as it was to release some kind of stress, and she slid back into the driver’s seat with a grunt and a waft of bubble-gum scent and smoke replacing the clean air of outside.

“How long have you been clean?” she asked him finally. _Tap tap tap_ went her foot on the floor, her knee jiggling against the keys hanging from the ignition. “And don’t lie to me.”

“Over a year, more or less,” he said. Honestly. He could have been more honest, down to the second, but he didn’t think she’d appreciate that show of pedantry. He punctured this thought by burying one foot under the fast food wrappers and shifting it around, breaking the awkward silence.

“Stop playing with the trash. And put your seat-belt back on. Are you going to fuck me over, skinny?”

He twitched and looked at her, not sure how to answer. He didn’t intend to. Not at all. He wanted— _needed_ —her help. “I’m not going to tell anyone you’re a…” he paused, glancing around the car, “…cop.”

She smirked. “Not FBI?”

“FBI would have a nicer car… yours is stake-out central.”

This earned him a laugh and she started the corolla with a savage twist of her hand on the keys. “Wrong. I _am_ FBI. You know what I mean about fucking me over, yes? I don’t mean telling anyone. I don’t think you’d put me, or Ethan, in that kind of shit. But I do think you’re gonna have trouble playing nice with me and my team if I can’t trust you not to end up on a coke binge. They’re not going to want to work with a junkie.”

“I can stay clean.” Maybe. Likely.

If given the right incentive.

But he jittered, his brain on fire and his arm itching. She gave him a look that was pure sympathy, her mouth thinning, and he hid his expression by staring out the window at the quiet, dawning city. “Ethan will be safe, won’t he?” he managed at some point, pressing his face to the window and feeling the cool glass stick to sweaty skin.

“Damn right he will,” Elle replied fiercely. “Kid, hey, look. I’m not… I’m a shit agent. I got this job by being a _good_ agent and the first thing I did when I was here was fall tits up for… fucking _Ethan,_ that ass.”

Manipulation was a difficult art to perfect, but Spencer knew he wasn’t hard to manipulate. Despite this, he thought maybe Elle was being more truthful with him than she’d ever been before. A ploy, no doubt, to gain his trust and use him as the fulcrum to get their operation where it needed to be to strike, but honesty nonetheless.

“Why _Ethan_?” he asked, perhaps a little bitterly.

The radio blared an advert and she smacked it to turn it off, wincing as a dial dropped loose and rolled into the trash. “Just, fuck, I don’t—” she began, and paused to heave a long breath. “He’s… I was investigating him. And I’m only telling you this because it will get you a long way towards my crew’s good books if you can give us this info—Ethan is down as a person of interest in the administrative functions of Elliot Kyle’s organization. The person we’re looking for is highly educated and intelligent enough to be churning out the kind of laundering we’re gonna be sorting through for years—”

Ah.

He coughed. “Ah, Ethan, ah…”

“—and when we looked up all the workers there fitting the age bracket, college graduates with some years in the workplace to become accustomed, his name popped up. Genius-level IQ with accreditations in mathematical—”

“ _Ah_ ,” he coughed again, and felt his face flushing. She looked at him, frowning. “Did you, um, ah…”

“Spit it out. Come on, kid, you gotta get better at communicating…”

“Did you… look me up? Because, um, that’s… me. That’s me. I’m… I’m the one doing the books.”

It was her turn to stare now, thankfully at an intersection on red. And then green. She still didn’t move, eyeing him up and down.

“Fuck off,” she breathed finally, a flush of red showing on the barest high points of her cheeks, illuminated by the dash. “We did fucking not. You’re a kid but _fuck_ you’re a _smartass_ , god, fuck, _damnit!”_

The tirade lasted the entire drive and, when they finally reached a tired apartment building and made their way up to where a man met them in a non-descript, barely lived in studio apartment, Elle introduced him as ‘Colossus’. As unnerved as he was to realize he’d already been the subject of investigative processes, it was a little thrilling to realize he had an alias.

That thrill lasted until they sat him down and had him write down everything.

Every last thing.

“This is going higher for sure,” the man said after, staring down at the pages of notes Spencer had wordlessly handed them. “This is out of our hands, Elle.”

“Like fuck it is,” she snarled in reply, her own expression strained. “I’ve worked too hard on this. Look—Spence—can you get us one of these books? Not in your words—we need the actual book. Solid evidence.”

He nodded, _yes_.

And just like that, he was in over his head with Elle his only lifeline.

 

* * *

 

He got the book. He risked _everything_ to get the book, but it never made it to Elle, because that was the night Aaron’s dad died.

They curled together in Aaron’s bed. Spencer could hear Simon and Kate walking quietly around outside in the apartment, talking in hushed voices. They knew. A pall had slid over the home, as everyone tried to work out how to step around this pale, stunned-looking Aaron.

“I’m fine,” he’d stammered, after lowering the phone followed by, “Can we go home? Please?” followed by, “I think my dad just died.”

And Spencer had never heard him so lost, so distant, so… unsure.

He’d never seen him like this.

“It’s okay to be sad,” he tried. Tried to think what he’d do if it was his dad, or his—no, not his mom. Never his mom.

Aaron looked at him blankly with eyes of nothing. “I’m not sad,” he said, but there was a white line of something down his cheek that said he was feeling _something_. “Don’t talk… please, just… just…”

Spencer held him close on that long, confusing night. Aaron didn’t cry. Simon slid in at one point with a slice of reheated pizza, leaving it on the bedside cupboard with a quiet, _here if you need me, mate._ It sat there cooling and scenting the air with grease until Aaron listlessly picked all the mushrooms off and ate just those.

“I love you,” Spencer whispered, as morning broke and Aaron mourned.

“Don’t leave,” was the husky reply. Half-incoherent with the sleep he was holding back, Aaron was slumped bonelessly in Spencer’s arms with his face pressed against his chest. “Don’t…”

“Alright,” Spencer murmured. “I’ll stay. I promise.”


	37. June, 2002

_Aaron’s going to kill me,_ Spencer had thought as the man shoved him to the ground.

_This might actually kill me first_ , he’d realized moment later as the boot had fallen.

He’d fucked up. He’d fucked up so bad. After everything he’d done to ensure him taking Elle upstairs—behind the doors that normally cost a pretty penny to breach—was as overlooked as he could possibly make it, he’d fucked it all up. He hadn’t put the book back. The ledger with Elliot Kyle’s dirty money filtered through it, everything VU had done and would do and was doing. He hadn’t put it back, and everyone was a suspect.

He was suspect #1.

They’d jumped him when he was walking from his home to meet Elle at work, summoned by an ambiguous text from her that just read _work is strange today._ Strange today meaning ‘what the fuck did you do’, and he’d been prepared for something, but not this.

Dirtied and bloodied with his new hair mussed and the tailored suit he’d spent his whole pay-cheque on, he might have gotten out of it by being smart and fast-mouthed. After being dragged back to the club and shoved into a room with Elliot and two men Spencer didn’t know, he almost had them convinced of his innocence. He had Elliot anyway—the man was desperate to believe his pet genius wasn’t a snitch and reaching for any evidence that suggested so. The other men didn’t matter. They were muscle, nothing else, and so Spencer ignored them. He talked his way out of it with a tight feeling that maybe he was going to make it back to Aaron after all and not miss the funeral.

Then Elliot dismissed him with a snapped accusation at the one who’d kicked Spencer’s cheek in— _I said bring him in, not fuck him up!_ —and he walked out to find Elle slouching outside the office door with her arm held tight by Dent and her lip bloodied.

“It wasn’t her,” Spencer told Dent, as Dent shoved by and dragged her into the office. “I can promise you—it wasn’t her. She’s never up here without me. Dent!”

The door clicked shut. Spencer breathed in, once. Tugged his cell out and winced at the dozens of missed calls and texts. Aaron, hurt and frantic. Turning it off felt cruel, so Spencer shoved it back into his pocket on silent without answering any of them.

He could leave and still catch Aaron.

He couldn’t leave.

He pulled his phone out again, slinking through the halls and downstairs into the employee bathroom, making sure at least three people saw him going in there. And he swallowed his pride and wrote out: _I need your help. Elle’s in danger. Do exactly as I say._

* * *

“You’re a fuckwit.” Ethan’s gaze was locked on him, Spencer could tell. It was burning into the back of his head, just as fiercely demanding as the ache in his knees. It was making it _very_ hard to concentrate. “Spencer, what the _fuck_ is going on?”

“Shh,” Spencer hummed. In his slick hands, the long reach hook slipped and knocked the tumbler. “Concentrating.” But it was impossible to focus when every thump could be Dent’s footsteps coming towards them, when every noise could be Elle crying out for help.

“No one is coming.” Ethan moved away slightly, towards the corner. “Hurry _up_.” He was carrying the ledger in a backpack slung across his back, nondescript in his black uniform. Spencer took a moment to glance up at his friend, wincing at the thunderous expression he wore. Then, he wiped sweat from his eyes, readjusted the picks, and leaned closer to Dent’s office door.

“This lock is crap, it’s just a generic cheap-o rim cylinder,” he mumbled to himself as he worked. They were running out of time before—he worked faster: “Can't be a Schlage because the plug retainer is a clip rather than a threaded cap, can't be a mortise cylinder as it has no cam—”

“Spencer,” Ethan said suddenly. Downstairs, the steady thump of the music stalled. Spencer heard bangs. Shouts. Around the hall, he heard Elliot yell, his office door banging.

And under his hand, the lock slid open.

He grabbed the ledger as Ethan flung it to him and bolted in, taking only a heartbeat before sliding the heavy book under the man’s filing cabinet. Out the door—he locked it behind him and turned with his heart wild and his eyes wilder—and Ethan grabbed his arm and hauled him in the opposite direction of the voices. They ran. Around the hall, down the stairs to the second floor, and slammed into Spencer’s room with the door bouncing on its latch behind them.

And they stood there, neither facing the other, breathing heavily. “You need to go,” Spencer babbled, turning on his heel. There was no window in here. But—outside, three doors down—a bathroom… “You need to go so Kyle doesn’t think you had anything—”

“FBI, hands where we can see them!”

Too late.

 

* * *

 

The eight and a half inches between him and Ethan felt like a cavernous space filled with all the air in the room. Spencer kicked his feet anxiously against the desk in front as Elle paced behind them. Ethan was silent. On the other side of the desk, Elle’s handler was paging through the photocopied pages of the ledger. “After tonight, we have enough evidence that—with your testimonies—we stand a very good chance of taking them down, or at least Elliot Kyle’s branch. There’s absolutely no justification to continue your operation, Agent Greenaway. And, after tonight, there’s no way I’m comfortable allowing it.”

Ethan had winced at _Agent Greenaway_ and was now staring at his knees with his cheeks flushing pink. Spencer watched him out of the corner of his vision, swallowing hard at the dangerously glassy glaze to them.

“You only say a _chance_ , Jones, we need more than a chance! Elliot Kyle holds the key to _dozens_ of our ongoing investigations—we fuck up taking him down, they’re going to scatter and we’ve lost them all!” Elle whirled again, her eyes skating across Ethan and darting away as Spencer looked at her. “You took Dent in today with enough evidence to hold him _and_ Kyle thinks he’s the mole—there’s no reason to pull me!”

“You’re going to go back?” Ethan said suddenly, his voice rough and gaze snapping up to Elle’s bloodied mouth. “After they questioned you?”

Elle didn’t even flinch. “I’m a desperate woman,” she replied coolly. “Kyle doesn’t have anyone working for him that isn’t desperate, isn’t trapped. You don’t think he deserves to be taken down, Coiro?”

Unsaid, it hovered in the room: _you don’t think Spencer **needs** him taken down? _

“How fast can we get a resolution? With you _and_ Reid in minimal danger?”

It was probably one of the braver things he’d done recently, speaking up in a room filled with angry people all ignoring him. But Spencer kicked his shoes against the carpet once more, coughed, and hoarsely managed: “Kyle is going to be covering his tracks after tonight. He’ll be burying anything that makes him look shady, anything that will be seized when you return with a warrant driven by whatever he believes Dent is telling you. For that, he needs me… for that, he’ll show me _everything_.” When he looked up once more, finally meeting the gaze of the man across the desk, every eye was on him: “Give me a month. Please.”

“A month,” said Jones quietly. “You both have a month. I don’t think I need to stress to you how much trouble this is going to cause, Greenaway, bringing another civilian into this.”

“Ethan is—”

Ethan cut Elle off. “Not interested in being involved,” he said monotonously. “With _any_ of it.”

Elle’s soft intake of breath was both painfully quiet and far too loud, and every one of them heard it.

“Stay behind, Greenaway,” Jones ordered, as Spencer and Ethan walked from the room.

She did.

 

* * *

 

It was fear that made him keep his cell off until he was alone in his room, ready for whatever came his way. He sat on his mattress with his knees tucked up and one hand resting on the soft linen where Aaron would usually lie—usually, he assumed, because after this? Aaron was _never_ going to forgive him—and his cell nestled in his palm. He poked at his blackened eye, wincing as it burned in response. In the apartment outside his room, there was complete silence. It was as though he was alone, despite knowing that Ethan was curled up in his own room with his anger and a bottle of whiskey. There was no light to break the gloom. No light seeped in through his shabby curtains or in from under the crack in the door.

It was night. He’d completely missed the funeral.

He’d left Aaron to face his father’s body alone.

“Fuck,” Spencer breathed, and lifted his hand from the bed to press between his eyes, gasping as the bruising socket throbbed and sent splinters of pain stabbing into his head. Blinking back tears, he jabbed the _on_ button and stared at the watery gleam of the screen as it powered up and began buzzing endlessly in his hand. _Buzz buzz buzz buzz buzz_ and he winced with every hum. The messages he’d ignored as he’d messaged Ethan to bring the ledger and the calls he’d rejected as he’d frantically worked to convince Elle’s handler to go along with his plan in convincing Elliot that Dent was the crooked one.

There were more now. Spencer swallowed, and opened the latest. And then the next.

And the next.

**From: Aaron**

**> where r u? how many times hav i kept u frm shooting up**

**> i always help u and u dont give a shit about me**

Those were the kinds ones. They preceded panic, sure, and they preceded him bolting out into Ethan’s room and battering on the closed door until Ethan answered, his face a storm-cloud and his fists bunched.

“I need to go to Aaron,” Spencer rambled.

That preceded discovering that Aaron was gone. That Sean was alone and scared for his brother at Aaron’s apartment. That Sean was bleeding and not entirely sure whose blood it was, that Aaron wasn’t answering his phone, that he could be anywhere and in any condition and, if he was half as drunk as Sean was, far too drunk to be alone. Spencer called and he called and he called and got voicemail every time.

And then the texts turned cruel.

**> you think normal people would put up with this shit??**

**> what makes you any different from HIM you always LEAVE just like before**

**> when we were kids**

**> I needed you then and I needed you NOW and ur all i can think about but im always NOTHING to YOU**

**> but ill just keep fucking putting up with your shit just like ethan ands it more than you deserve**

Finally, they turned crushing. Spencer stared down at the screen of his phone as the streets whipped by outside the window of Ethan’s car against his cheek. The cell gleamed accusingly, the words damning.

**> i wish i could hate you like i hate loving you**

“ _Spencer_ ,” Ethan snapped, not the first time he’d said it. “Where else would he go?”

Spencer couldn’t think. Couldn’t think to panic. To reply. To—

The phone vanished from his limp hand, Ethan glancing at the screen before hissing something indiscernible. “You were cruel too,” he said finally, his voice soft, “when you were high and didn’t want anyone to find you. But you never meant any of it.”

“What if something happens?” Spencer managed. “What if we don’t…”

Ethan was quiet. In his pocket, his own cell hummed, his fingers dancing on the fabric as he stared up at the traffic lights. “And now you know how I felt every time I did this for you.”

Ouch.

It was true.

It was damning.

“I’m sorry,” Spencer breathed, too little too late.

Ethan ignored his apology, instead pulling the car over after the lights and answering his cell with a sharp snap to his voice that resonated in the interior of his car. Spencer toed at the fast food wrappers on the floor with his heart in his mouth and his gut twisting tight.

And then Ethan’s voice turned cool, turned hurt, and he said, “Why should I trust you this time? You’ve been lying to me for _months_. You’ve never _not_ lied to me…” A voice like shattering.

Spencer closed his eyes and didn’t look. _Elle_. The look on Ethan’s face at the words _Agent Greenaway_ said more than anything which of them wouldn’t be escaping this night unscarred. And, somewhere in the midnight city around them, Aaron was drowning too. Not Spencer, who’d lied, nor Elle, who’d made a career of it, but the men who’d dared to love them and gotten stung for their troubles.

He tried to call Aaron. Straight to voicemail. Ethan hung up with a quiet _okay_ and they sat in silence for a moment.

“Simon called Elle,” Ethan said finally. Spencer was silent, but his pulse bounded a moment at the thought of the agent’s help at finding Aaron before… well, before anything. “She’s with them now. Wants us to meet them, says she can… help.”

He didn’t sound convinced.

“She has resources we don’t…” Spencer said eventually, hating himself but seeing no choice. “We need her.”

Ethan shot him an incredulous look, but put the car into drive. They drove in silence, with everything they’d feared filling the space between them.

 

* * *

 

That night didn’t stop spiralling into horror. They’d met up with Elle and Ethan had silently waited for Spencer to sprint from the car and then driven away without a word, leaving them standing staring uselessly after his car. Spencer and Simon had pretended they couldn’t see the tears Elle was furiously holding back, or hear the way her voice had wavered as she’d asked a friend to help track Aaron’s cell.

They’d found Aaron, and Spencer’s nightmares would become flavoured with the sight of his boyfriend wavering against the railing of a bridge from then on.

Spencer had gotten him to bed. “M’sorry I told you to fuck off,” Aaron had mumbled drunkenly, his breath and his sweaty-soiled skin striking deep into something repressed deep in Spencer’s twisting gut and making even being in the same room as him an exercise in panic-reduction.

“It’s okay,” Spencer said quietly, and assumed that Aaron couldn’t remember the other texts. A search of his boyfriend’s discarded clothes on the bedroom floor, stinking of vomit and sweat and blood and dirt, found no cell for Spencer to delete the texts before Aaron could be reminded. Tossing the clothes into the bathroom hamper as a ‘later’ problem, Spencer swallowed down the _i wish i could hate you like i hate loving you_ into somewhere deep and hidden alongside the choking panic and knew he would be the ruin of the broken man in front of him. The one who kept waking up from an alcohol-soaked sleep and babbling about Spencer, about his brother, about his father, about everything he’d pulled tight and kept hidden.

_I’m nothing to you,_ his text had screamed at Spencer, and so Spencer kept his distance and watched from Aaron’s desk, wishing he knew the words to fix this, to make it different. To twist his life back on the right track, with Aaron and his studies his first priority instead of drugs and panic and undercover operations that Aaron would _never_ find out about.

A soft knock on the door precluded Sean edging in, his eyes wide on his own grimy face and coated in the same slick-sour scent of alcohol. Spencer closed his eyes and pushed it down, everything he knew was going to one day overwhelm him.

“He okay?” Sean asked, and Spencer nodded.

“You okay?” Sean asked, and Spencer pushed harder. “He can get mean when drunk but he doesn’t mean it, not like… not like dad. Before you got him out, before you told me how bad it was. I didn’t realize, you know. Didn’t think he’d be this fucked up about him…”

“I didn’t help him,” Spencer said blankly. He remembered, as through it was some distant dream, the summer Aaron’s arm was broken. It was a strange, sunken memory, like something he had to struggle to recollect, on the other side of the week that had killed him and left behind the sour man he was now. “I knew he was a victim of child abuse from the first summer I met him. I did nothing for years.”

And in that distant, gloomy memory, he remembered a patchwork of bruises across a child’s back and sides and imagined himself as a man grown watching a dark-haired boy walk slowly home. Alone.

Standing aside and doing nothing.

“What?” Sean said. “Spencer, you were a kid, dude. You didn’t—”

“I abandoned him then and I’ll do it again,” Spencer mumbled and crumpled, and curled on the desk with paper sticking damply to his cheek. Aaron snorted in his sleep, jerking upright with wide eyes and dangerously cow-licked hair, the blanket sliding down his bare chest to pool, thankfully, across his naked lap.

“What?” Aaron slurred, blinking, staring at Sean. “Sean, geddout of my room. Where’s Spence?”

“Pouting at your desk,” Sean answered.

_Dead and gone,_ Spencer thought. _You’re better off without him. If I was kind, I’d show you that._

But Spencer hadn’t been kind for a long time, and he was far too weak to start now.

 

* * *

 

Lies followed. Lies about that night, about Spencer’s black eye, about his work. Lies about the texts. Lies about the state of their hearts. Spencer became a liar in everything because to tell even one truth would be to bare parts of himself he couldn’t let Aaron see.

The fighting hurt. Every fight tore something integral inside Spencer, some small part of him that still knew the name of a beetle stumbling across a homemade fort. Every fight shattered those rose-tinged glasses just a little more until Spencer was too tired to even struggle to remember those Halcyon days.

He returned to work. There were eyes on him everywhere. They all watched him, no one trusted him. His books were checked twice and everything he done examined. He didn’t dare go near Elle. He couldn’t go near Ethan. He was isolated to the second floor with everyone around him suspicious.

Ethan refused to speak to him. Their home became silent. No music, no talking, just the muffled shuffle of footsteps as they danced around each other and tried to make sure they were never in the same room at the one time. Spencer began to sleep a lot.

His coursework suffered. His research failed, twice. Non-replicable data. If it happened again, he’d lose his funding.

Simon hated him for hurting Aaron. Kate hated him for continuing to hurt Aaron. Elle hated him because he represented everything she’d done for her job, everything that had become the knife to slice Ethan from her life. Ethan hated him because he should.

Aaron didn’t hate him, but Spencer almost wished he would.

Summer crept on, and Spencer had never been so alone.


	38. July, 2002

He had a bad night at work. The details eluded him. But he was shaken, rattled, unravelling from his core. Aaron had visited his work that day. Approached Elle. Spencer had approached them _both_. All three of them were marked now. Suspicion folded down around them. He tended bar for two hours and slammed a patron into a wall for grabbing his ass. Elle was pale and silent and hadn’t answered earlier when Spencer had breathed to her _when will this be over_ using the noise of the ice machine as cover. It was never going to be over, he suspected. Spencer wanted to hit the man harder.

He did.

He was sent home without pay for the hours he’d worked that day. Eyes watched him out the door. He checked every corner for more eyes watching him walk home. Couldn’t bring himself to lead them there.

He went to Aaron, taking the long way and circling multiple times around different blocks before parking the car three buildings away and using a back entrance into the apartment building Aaron lived within. Paranoia shook up his hands, his spine, and the only way he could fight it was to be… nothing. Just a man. _Emotionally neutered_ , someone had once described him as, and he could still be that now if he needed.

Once he was safe in Aaron’s apartment, it would be fine. No one would reach him in there. There was no way anyone had followed him here. He rapped his fingers on his cell phone’s screen through the material of his work pants. It was silent.

It would be fine. They could reconnect.

Buzzing and numb and wired all at once, Spencer went to Aaron.

That proved to be a mistake.

 

* * *

 

He was scared of dying, so he drank.

He was scared of losing Aaron, so drinking turned to sex.

And he was more fucked up than he’d allowed himself to realize, so he absolutely and completely lost control. It happened in a heartbeat. One moment he was Spencer Reid and arching against his boyfriend’s body, aroused and giddy and his heart was thumping with something dangerously close to love. The alcohol hit in a staggering whirl as he slipped to his knees and slid his mouth roughly along Aaron’s cock. He swayed, slid off, closed his eyes as his head thumped and his brain rocked and something dark and cold dropped down his spine.

_I’m drunk,_ Spencer thought dazedly, his stomach twisting. Aaron’s hand threaded through his hair, tugged at the roots. Distantly, Aaron was talking using words Spencer couldn’t understand. _I’m drunk_.

_I’m drunk,_ replied a memory, just as distant as Aaron’s voice, and in response to that quiet whimper Spencer looked up into dark, dark eyes and replied without the conscious decision to do so: “Would you let me fuck you?”

And then he stepped away. Not physically. Physically he was still there.

Or someone was.

_It wasn’t my fault,_ Spencer thought as he watched the men fall to the bed together. _It wasn’t my fault,_ he thought again, feeling a hand on his cheek and a rough voice murmuring, “There’s only you, Spencer. Only ever you. She’s nothing.”

_It wasn’t my fault,_ Spencer repeated, freezing. On the bed, they were fucking. Close to fucking. Spencer watched the pain skate into the other man’s eyes, the panic, the fear. The choking worry. He knew that look. He watched that look on Aaron’s face and then he looked at his own face and he realized: _It was my fault._

_It was completely my fault._

_And I’m doing it again._

When he finally unfroze, he was in the bathroom and he’d missed the toilet throwing up. He cleaned up, washed up, went back to the bed where Aaron slept, and wondered if he’d hurt him.

He couldn’t remember if he had and was too scared to ask.

 

* * *

 

The invitation that finished what everything else this year had started arrived on a Friday, two weeks after he’d used his body to hurt the man he loved. Spencer would always remember the exact moment he’d found the glossy envelope on his office desk at the college and eased it carefully open to reveal what was inside. The invitation itself was nothing damning. A conference to celebrate recent advances in forensic psychology, many of which Spencer’s previous research had contributed in no small way to. He was to receive an award. There was discussion of the completion of his next doctorate. It would be an _honour_ to attend, a boon to his career. The erasure of past mistakes.

The invitation was nothing damning.

Spencer stared at the type below the _You are invited_.

_Guests speakers include the foremost expert of cognitive development, Dr. Ross Connors, PhD._

“I can’t go to this,” he tried to say, but the words tangled and stuck in his throat. Overhead, the air conditioned hummed. The air was sticky. It was summer. He hated summer. No one heard him. They were discussing their own attendance.

“You’ll be there of course?” someone asked. A research student, one of his. Maybe. Possibly.

He might have said, _no._ More likely, that someone who lived inside him and swallowed up his best intentions took over and said, _of course_. He didn’t know which, because moments later he was on his knees and pressing his face against the cool porcelain of a toilet bowl that was nowhere near as clean as the one at Aaron’s.

_Aaron,_ he remembered, and staggered upright. Stumbled again. _Doctor Reid, are you okay?_ someone asked and Spencer didn’t answer because he was raising his hand to rap sharply at Aaron’s front door. Except it wasn’t Aaron’s front door, it was his, and he stared blankly at it before letting himself in and walking robotically towards Ethan’s room. Stopping in the hall, in the thick air of the uncooled apartment.

Ethan wouldn’t help him. Ethan hated him. He’d hurt Ethan more than Ethan could forgive him for.

He turned and left.

He went to Aaron. But Aaron couldn’t help him. _One day,_ Aaron promised and Spencer didn’t have the vocabulary to express how it needed to be _this day._ That he couldn’t think, couldn’t reason, couldn’t even keep track of the suddenly skipping days of his life anymore. The day Aaron said no turned into the day after without Spencer being consciously aware of an in-between. He stayed with Aaron because the man was his only anchor to himself. Distantly, he thought he might be missing work, missing college, but his cell was turned off and in his car and the calendar kept lying to him and telling him days were passing in minutes, skipping him merrily towards the date on that damning invitation.

He only asked again once.

“The conference,” he whispered, but they were fighting again over something Spencer couldn’t remember doing. They were fighting and Aaron snarled, _why are you doing this?_  Instead of answering, Spencer left. Drove until he was dizzy and contemplated isolation. He contemplated running. He contemplated oblivion.

His cell was on. Parked in a dismal parking lot with a broken light hanging overhead, it was night now and he’d left in the morning.

He dialled a number. “Bennington Sanatorium,” said the tired, angry voice on the other end. Spencer opened his mouth and nothing came out and still the voice somehow replied, “I’m sorry, Doctor, but your mother is asleep. Would you like to leave a message?”

But when the voice in the cell spoke again it was Ethan’s answering message. _Leave a message, maybe I’ll return it,_ it said using Ethan’s voice. The next two times Spencer tried, the cell was off. _Beep beep beep,_ laughed the phone. _This number is unavailable._

Once more, and this time it answered. “This better be good, Reid,” Elle said snippily. “I’m about to hit the bath and pretend you and your asshole of a friend don’t exist. You calling me is _really_ make that pretence difficult— _Spencer_?”

He was crying except not really. It bubbled and coughed out of his mouth in desperate wheezing sobs that hiccupped and left him dizzy and lost. He couldn’t breathe. The cell slipped in his sweaty hand to he pressed it harder to his ear and curled his knees up in the cramped space of the driver’s seat so he could lean his face down as Elle’s voice rattled on and on and on and on and on and he understood none of it through his buzzing brain.

_Where are you_

_Tell me_

_What happened_

_Are you hurt_

_I’m calling—_

“Don’t tell Aaron,” he managed thickly, his tongue clumsy and his face rigid. None of the muscles seemed to be responding adequately to his prompting.

He’d felt like this before, once. Just once before.

“Okay, okay. I won’t. I promise. How about you come to me then? You’re in a car right—I can hear traffic—so listen to me. Spence, listen to me. Do what I say.”

“Don’t look for me,” Spencer managed.

“I’m not,” she soothed. He could hear her walking, hear the sound of a tap running her bath receding as she moved into a different room. “I’m not looking for you because you’re going to come here, okay? I’m going to direct you here. Just do exactly as I say. Start the car. Do not hang up on me.”

He followed her instructions right up until he parked in a ramshackle parking lot. “I’m here,” he mumbled into the cell, and cut off her reply as he switched the cell to off. The someone was back. Spencer watched as the someone else who’d called his mom and Ethan and Elle stepped out of Spencer’s car and walking into the apartment building without pausing, his expression blank. He watched as they reached a door, puffy-eyed and pink-lipped and swaying slightly despite not being drunk. He watched as they knocked.

And he took back control as the door opened and the woman let him in, her eyes wide and her mouth moving with shocked exclamations.

“Hi,” he said numbly to Clary. “No one is looking for me.”


	39. Recidivism

He accepted the drugs she gave him. He didn’t accept the sex. He wouldn’t cheat on Aaron, not in that way, although he wasn’t stupid enough that he thought that this _wasn’t_ cheating on him in some terrible fashion. That Aaron wouldn’t condemn him shooting up on Clary’s sagging couch, a spring digging into his hip and making a fist as he bunched and released his arm muscles, staring at the pock-marked skin.

Relapse is seen as the exception rather than the rule. Recidivism, the tendency of a convicted criminal to reoffend, to return to past patterns of learned behaviours.

Is anyone surprised?

It had been a month of silence. Of curling up smaller and smaller and smaller as his fears chewed him up and spit him out and no one loved him enough anymore to take notice. A month of holding it all tight within himself and telling no one about what was chasing him. Maybe that was why, as the easy slide of the needle in his arm became a heady rush of dizzying warmth, he began to talk. The someone that had led him here, the someone that had pushed him through the past few weeks of terror— _dissociative episodes,_ he recognised, but couldn’t comprehend as happening to him—talked about a girl named Halcyon and her Boy’s failure to defend her.

His month of silence ended here, with Clary perched on the edge of a broken coffee table in nothing but a shirt and faded underwear, watching him with her ankle tapping against her heel. He stared at the bob of her leg as he told her how Halcyon had loved and he reached out and traced the shape of a bruise on her leg as he told her how Halcyon had drowned. How someone she had loved had reached out and held her under until she’d stopped kicking and fighting and breathing. Not even magic could save her.

“He hates me,” he whispered, curling his fingers around her leg and feeling her twitch as his grip pulled against the yellowing bruise. “She lied to Ethan and Ethan hates me and Aaron hates me and—”

A hand touched his face, pulled his gaze up to hers. “I have no idea what you’re babbling about,” Clary said coolly, shaking him a little. “You losing it?”

He blinked. Yes.

No.

Yes?

“My mom is sick,” he said. “My mom is sick… am I like her? She went mad…”

And Clary leaned back, raised an eyebrow, and said: “You’re crazy enough. Drugs aren’t gonna help with going nuts, though.”

Maybe that was it. Connors had always told him he was a liar, that he was crazy, obsessed, _sick_. Maybe this was just him proving it.

“Would you stop?” he asked.

She replied, “No.”

 

* * *

 

When he opened his eyes again, he wasn’t on Clary’s couch anymore. The room he was in now didn’t stink of alcohol and stale bodies, with the faintest tinge of sex. It was airy, the walls painted white and the carpet he trailed his fingers on was clean. He was sober, or close enough to it, and it _hurt_ to be so.

“You’re a fucking _asshole_ ,” Elle said from somewhere behind him, and he closed his eyes and hated himself. “What the _fuck_ , Spencer? You call me losing your mind over something and then you vanish? You’re lucky I didn’t call that in—I almost told Jones I thought someone had done you in!”

“I’m okay,” Spencer lied through a dry mouth. A glass floated into view before him. He tried to reach for it and made a nauseating moaning sound as his gut cramped, turning his face away from the glaring light of her kitchen. Huddling close to himself, he was sweaty and shivering, his nose running and face wet with tears he wasn’t consciously aware of crying.

“You’re fucked up. You do realize that you look like a junkie right now, right?”

He looked at her. She wasn’t dressed for bed, despite it barely being four a.m. She was awake and wired, her hair pulled back and her eyes narrowed. Worried. She’d been worried about him.

“I can’t go home,” he mumbled. “Ethan will know. Ethan _can’t_ know.”

She sighed, shoving his hip until he shuffled back on the couch and let her perch next to him. In silence, he lay there with her side warm against him, wondering what she was going to do now. He didn’t know why he’d come here. Didn’t know why he trusted her not to tell Ethan, not to throw his ass into rehab, not to do any of the things he was hoping she wouldn’t…

“Am I crazy?” he asked her finally, when the silence hurt too much to keep going. He was shaking now, bone-shuddering tremors that came in waves, and she didn’t look at him when she finally answered.

“No.” Her voice was sharp. He blinked. That hadn’t been the answer he’d been expecting from her. “You’re not acting crazy, Reid. You’re…” He waited. “…you’ve been acting _scared_.” Now, she finally looked at him, her mouth thin and expression weary. “You need to talk to me, Spencer. I can’t lose you as a witness, and I don’t _want_ to lose you as a…”

They stared at each other.

“I’m not your friend,” Spencer said. His voice was shakier than he’d wanted it to be. “You lied to Ethan.”

“So did you.”

“He’s never loved me like he loves you…”

And just like that, he saw her fold away the sympathy she’d been regarding him with, her face and posture turning rigid and cold. “Fine, we’re not friends,” she said, and smiled sharply. “Which means you ain’t gonna do shit to stop me drug testing you once a week, _cabrón_. If you fuck up and relapse, since I’m sure you’re stupid enough to, you come right here, understand? I don’t care if you’re high as balls, you come here and do whatever it is you do when stoned _here_. You don’t run, you don’t shoot up in some dingy shithole of a bathroom with used needles, you don’t overdose, you come here and you be _safe_.” She paused, breathing quickly and leaning closer. “If you die, I’ve wasted months on your case, Reid. If you get busted actively using, that deal we made with you? Your testimony in return for cleaning your record up and leaving your name off everything official? Gone. You’ll go down as an addict and as one of the lynchpins of a criminal organization, boy, and you’ll go down hard. You want me to play nice with you? Get clean and _talk to me._ ”

He blinked. Her voice had cracked right at the end, desperation leaking through her hardened facade. If he didn’t know better, he’d think she was genuinely concerned about him as a _person_ , not just as a witness.

“You’re not going to tell Ethan?” was all he asked, because he was a coward through and through. Her mouth pursed, she looked down and away, but she shook her head and he had no choice but to trust her. Alone, he’d drown. “Okay. I’ll… okay.”

 

* * *

 

He failed every test she gave him, as the days grated on. She wasn’t shocked. After all, she had a front-seat view to his self-destruction.

But she never threw him out. She never dobbed him in. She just pointed wordlessly to the camp bed she’d set up in her living room, put a glass of water next to him, and sat on the couch while he tried not to ramble helplessly at her.

He failed. _Talk to me_ , she’d told him, so, after testing the waters and finding that that razor-sharp tongue was never turned against him when he tried to open up to her, he did. He didn’t know why he’d chosen _Elle_ of all people to talk to. Maybe because she wasn’t Ethan; Ethan had seen him raw too many times to not take this destruction of himself personally. Definitely because she wasn’t Aaron; Spencer knew he was too fucked up about his feelings around the man he loved to ever be able to speak to him frankly. Clary didn’t care or, rather, she’d had everything he’d ever suffered and more done to her. He told Elle this one day, stoned and stupid and idly drawing on the back of one of his lecture pads as she filled out paperwork on her coffee table. She never left him here alone, so he never came here if he knew she was working. He hadn’t gone to work in two weeks. Whatever; they’d never find him here. Here was safe. Here was clean and bright and unconnected to everything he’d broken. Elle was _safety_ , in some bizarre way.

“She never talks to me,” he mumbled, more to himself, adding another flurry of lines to the chaotic scrawl he was sketching. Elle, he thought it might be, except she was jagged and confused and full of razorblade edges. “Clary, I mean. Never. We never talk, not ever, just… get high. We used to sleep together, to fuck I guess, it wasn’t anything prettier than that. She’s always bruised. Aaron used to be bruised all the time.”

Used to his rambling mind, she ignored him until he said that and he felt her gaze shoot up to stare at him. Hastily, he clarified: “Not now. Back _then._ When we were kids. I knew him when we were kids, before it all, before this. He knew me. Doesn’t know me now. His dad hit him. I never helped him, I was so _weak_.”

She blinked, pen pausing on the paper. He tore his picture of her out and flicked it aside, beginning a new one. Aaron and a lake and a patchwork pattern of bruises. Soft except in the places he was broken, his back turned to Spencer because Spencer couldn’t bear the condemnation he’d have to draw if they were facing each other.

She never talked back, but she never told him to stop.

He tried to slow his using. He needed to. He needed to be able to spend time with Aaron, because Aaron was the only thing holding him steady. Even when he was high, just a _little_ high, dressed in his work-shirt so Aaron wouldn’t suspect, Aaron grounded him. When they were together, he didn’t have to babble or hide or get so stoned he couldn’t remember. He was determined that if this was the countdown to the end of him—because some nihilistic part of himself was hyper-focused on the upcoming date of the conference and the end of everything he suspected that it represented—he was going to leave Aaron with something _good_ to remember.

He dragged him out to Jeremy’s jazz club and made him dance until they were both helplessly giggling at each other’s ineptitude. The fighting and the horror of the last month faded in the buzz of adrenaline and the very slight thrill of being ever so slightly high—Aaron didn’t know, and Ethan wasn’t there to tell—and as soon as they were done, they went home and had sex and Spencer didn’t panic once.

Afterwards, he slipped away, went to Clary’s, went to Elle’s, and shuddering into a panic attack that lasted the rest of the night because _what if it was the last_. He woke from a nightmare of pinning Aaron down with his arm slung clumsily across the other man’s throat, too strung out on his own pleasure to realize that Aaron was choking, to Elle crouched over him.

“When was the last time you went home?” she asked quietly, her fingers brushing his pulse as she lowered his wrist back to the camp-bed. “I’m serious, kid. This isn’t doing you any good. Let Ethan help you…”

But Ethan was struggling too. Spencer slunk home one weekend, the day _before_ , and found Ethan asleep on the couch, an empty bottle of whiskey on the counter and the distinct tinge of weed on the air. Spencer paused, sniffing, a thrill of cold squeezing deep into his bones. Ethan wasn’t into weed… or if he was, he’d done a fantastic job of hiding it for four years.

Further evidence of the destructive capabilities of Spencer on the lives of those around him.

He sat in the kitchen staring at that accusatory bottle until the sun came up and Ethan grunted awake, looking over at him with red eyes and a hang-dog expression as he sat upright slowly and rubbed at his face. “You’re home,” he stated dumbly, voice slurry with sleep. “Righto.”

And then he got up and walked to his room, closing the door gently behind him.

Spencer counted down another hour and only left when it became apparent that Ethan wasn’t coming back. He didn’t go to Elle’s. He didn’t go to Clary’s. The someone was lurching upright, reminding him that _thirty-four hours until the end_ and, to hold it back for just one more night, he went to Aaron.

They drove until they didn’t know where they were anymore, slept in a tangle of limbs in the car, and Spencer wished they’d stayed there forever. Away from Clary, who was dismissive, away from Ethan, who was hateful, and away from Elle, who he didn’t _understand_ because she wasn’t angry at him and she hadn’t dobbed him in and she wasn’t doing anything he expected of someone who was just as selfish as he was.

But they didn’t stay.

 

* * *

 

Ten hours.

He went sober to Elle’s. This seemed to scare her more than the drugs did. She didn’t let him sit in his corner; he was too scared to speak anyway. She pecked and pushed and worried and this only got worse when the test she made him take came back clear.

He wanted to ask her to come with him, because she was FBI, she was strong and alive and real and frightening, and some small part of himself wanted to hide behind her and use her as a shield. He wanted to cling to the illusion of stability she gave him.

He couldn’t find the words and left without asking.

Five hours.

He went home. He got dressed. Shave. Shirt. Suit. Tie. Brush hair. Cologne. Robotic, monotonous. He was careful. A man should look his best as he walked the green mile.

The someone didn’t help him. On this night, the night he desperately needed to be someone else, he was Spencer, and he was terrified. He was terrified, until he wasn’t.

Ethan was asleep. Spencer slipped into his room, looked down at his sleeping friend and wanted to shake him awake and ask him to come with him. He wanted to ask because Ethan was caring, even when angry, forgiving, even when he shouldn’t be, and vengeful, and maybe Spencer wanted to see Ethan tearing down the fear that surrounded him.

He couldn’t find the courage and left without saying a thing.

Two hours.

He whispered it. _“Please come with me,”_ but Aaron was joking loudly about how pretty Spencer looked in his suit and didn’t hear.

Spencer looked at him and thought, _Don’t make me do this alone._

Aaron kissed him. “You’re going to be great, I promise,” he said, and smiled. A gorgeous smile. Something hot and warm and overwhelming slammed into Spencer like a freight train. Love; it was love.

It was dangerous.

_I can’t feel like this about you,_ he thought wildly, and backed away. _I’m a grenade. I’m going to ignite, one day, soon. Probably tonight._

And he ran, from the man who loved him and back towards the one he feared. He couldn’t do this. The silent drive. The blank walk inside the college that had become somewhere he loved. He couldn’t do this.

But, because he was sick of failing, he did.

 

* * *

 

He didn’t eat. He didn’t drink. He might have spoken to people who spoke to him, joked with him, commented on how nervous he looked. He didn’t feel nervous. He didn’t feel anything. The night raced on and the face he feared wasn’t there, didn’t loom out of the crowd of people around him, didn’t leap out from the shadows. He wasn’t one of the speakers. He wasn’t waiting by the bathrooms when Spencer went to wash his face.

He relaxed, minutely. Enough to give his speech and only stumble a little from nerves. Public speaking was horrific, always, but he’d done so much worse in his life that it was really inconsequential.

He relaxed, a little more, as they applauded politely and he accepted his award and walked from the podium with shaking hands. Back to his table, through the throngs of people, but someone touched his arm. He turned, automatically, smiling in case it was—

Ross.

“Hi, Spencer,” he said with a nervous smile. His hand slid down Spencer’s arm, long and slow, curling around his wrist before cool fingers settled on his hand. A heartbeat of touch before it moved away, leaving him cold. “We should talk, privately. I’ve brought you a drink, come on—”

He took the drink.

Is anyone surprised?


	40. Pandemonium, Six

_(He ran. Sober, he fled, until he found exactly where he needed to be to keep on running. And the whole time, he was panicking, turning in place, checking every dark and lit corner for a man, a shape moving towards him, an offered hand. Someone chasing him. Because escape couldn’t be as easy as turning around and walking away._

_Could it?_

_He doubted it._

_Trapped like a rat in a cage and he waited for the killing blow. Diamorphine solution mixed with cocaine hydrochloride; he got high fast and hard and dropped gleefully into nothing._

_Mindless, just how they liked him.)_

He was fourteen and with Aaron.

Summer yawned outside. The window of Aaron’s tiny apartment bedroom was thrown wide open, the bustle of the dingier side of New York seeping in through the towel Aaron was using in sans of an actual curtain. Spencer watched dreamily as the towel—emblazoned with the logo of the Washington Redskins, because Aaron was nothing if not eternally optimistic about the comeback of those he stood for—snapped and swayed with a dry summer breeze. Night was falling, but the air refused to cool. They were barely dressed and languid with the weather.

“I really think I’m going to be a lawyer,” Aaron said suddenly, rolling on his bed and dangling over the side to peer down at Spencer. “I think I’d be really good at it.”

“You’d be fantastic,” Spencer said loyally, before adding on, “Why?” because he was always curious about the workings of the human mind.

Aaron thought about that for a while. “Because,” he said finally, softly, slowly, “you were a kid and you made such a big difference for me… changed my life. Imagine the kind of change I could make as an adult… that’s something you taught me, when you stuck up for me. When you contacted Sean. You _saved_ me. I want to save others.”

And Spencer didn’t know what to say, because nothing in his head felt adequate to that.

_(Ethan found him first. Of course he did. The man had a fucking tracking chip implanted in Spencer somewhere, he was sure. Paranoid, Spencer turned and stared at the two people slowly approaching him, and then ran his hands up his arms, just to check. Just to check._

_“Go away,” he told them savagely. “Fuck off. Leave me alone. I’m fine.” He was fine. He was more than fine. He was finally out of his stupid, messy, fucked up piece of shit brain—couldn’t they see he **needed** this?!_

_“What did you do?” Ethan asked, his face twisting in Spencer’s wavering vision, angry and sad and angry and angry and angry and Elle’s…_

_“She’s lying to you,” Spencer said dully, and pointed to Elle, who said nothing. “She’ll always lie to you. Just like I will. Why do you surround yourself with people who lie to you?”_

_Ethan didn’t reply. Spencer was falling. Being carried. Being dragged. He tried to lash out but whoever was holding him was stronger than he was._

_“Don’t let me drink it,” he begged them. Memory taunted him. His tie caught around his throat, choking him, until a hand reached and readjusted it. If they were talking to him, he ignored it. “Don’t let him do it.”_

_“Do what?”_

_Who?)_

He was fourteen and falling in love.

It was the week before he was due to leave. Sean was out for the night and they were bundled up on the mattress they’d dumped on the living room floor, clustered around a pile of VHS tapes with the _Blockbuster_ stickers all picked off. Spencer’s shoulder was pressed to Aaron’s. Aaron’s head was tilted against Spencer’s.

The sound on Aaron’s copy of _Goldeneye_ was out of line with the image. Aaron, without missing a beat, was filling in the gaps for the only moderately interested Spencer.

“We should watch Alien again,” he suggested when the performance was over.

Aaron, a little drunk and very silly, responded pertly with, “We should make out.”

Spencer wasn’t an idiot. He knew his body was undergoing massive hormonal and chemical changes brought about by the onset of puberty. He _knew_ this, logic and rationality vs. emotion. But, tangled in the musty orange blanket that was a little too itchy to be comfortable, with Aaron a heavy, comforting weight on his chest as they kissed and explored each other with increasing enamour, he stupidly thought that maybe he wasn’t completely wrong when he thought he might be falling in love. Or maybe he had been all along.

He didn’t say any of this.

_(“What do we do? Take him home?”_

_“Aaron can’t see him like this.”_

_“Should go to a hospital…”_

_Someone was holding him. He was on his side in the bumpy backseat of a familiar smelling car. That someone’s hand stroked down his shoulder. Up down up down up down in a motion designed to undo him. He shuddered with the touch, gagged, tried to pull away._

_Up down up down and just like before, **just how you like it** , and he’d laid like this before as a hand just like that stroked his shoulder and his side and whispered how important he was. He tipped his head back to see if it was going to happen again and found brown eyes looking down at him. Lighter than the ones that he feared._

_He clung to her._

_“What’s got you so scared?” he dreamed she murmured to him, her fingers tapping out a rapid tempo against his pulse._

_“It’s not going to work with you,” he realized out loud, hating how slurred and stupid his voice was. Just like him. All smeary and useless. “Is it? I can’t fuck you to make you stop caring. Didn’t work with Ethan either. You’re both stupid. Ask him. It’s good. I’m good.”_

_“What the fuck…”_

_“Ignore him. He gets like this. I’m taking him to Hotchner’s. I can’t deal with him when he does this shit.”_

_Spencer closed his eyes and listened to them hate him. The façade he’d created tumbling down with a glass and a smile and a soft **I’ve brought you a drink…** )_

He was fourteen and hadn’t yet learned how to stand strong when alone.

Maybe if he had, things would have been different.


	41. Pandemonium, Five

He was striking out to hurt.

“Don’t take me in there,” he hissed to Ethan, fighting unsuccessfully against the hold Elle had him in. “Don’t give me to him, please please, don’t do it, don’t…”

Ethan was staring at him, his eyes wide and confused. “Idiot, we’re taking you to _Aaron’s._ Where the fuck do you think we’re taking you?”

Spencer shook and shook and shook his head, curling down and hurt and blinking to find himself dressed up all pretty in a suit and tie. Why was he dressed? His memory was foggy, ineffectual, broken and torn with holes in the usually immaculate narrative he’d constructed of his life.

“I don’t want to,” he told them, begged them. Didn’t want to go, didn’t want to _remember_ , but someone had reached out their hand to him once and he’d taken it and been dragged under.

Here he was, finally drowning.

“Is he normally this erratic?”

“No. Normally he at least makes _sense_.”

Despite his best efforts, they were winning. Spencer went limp and let them draw him through the doors, through the foyer of the apartment building, towards the elevator. He closed his eyes and shoved back viciously at everything that was threatening to overwhelm him. Connors’ cool-skinned hand touching his, the scent of his cologne—just the same, he realized, it was _just_ the same as _he_ used to wear, and as soon as he realized that he buckled and retched, head spinning and throat closing and chest pulling tight.

“Jesus, fuck, Spencer—”

Helplessly, he laughed because he couldn’t do anything else. It was scaring them, he could tell, because Elle had never seen him like this and Ethan had hoped he wouldn’t again. That was okay. He could fix that. Couldn’t he? Act, just like he’d been acting _sane_ this whole time when he was crazy like his mother. He could act silly and fun and more like the boy who knew the beetle’s name, turning in Elle’s arms and tucking his nose against the curve of her neck and tasting sweat where her skin touched his lips. “He loves you,” he mumbled into that sweet-scented skin, hearing Ethan hiss behind him, “he loves you, don’t hurt him. I love him, and I hurt him. Don’t be like me.” Bizarrely, he began to laugh as Elle’s hands around him tightened.

He laughed because he was breaking, because he was broken, because Connors had touched him and would again and there was no escape, no recompense, and he’d gotten him before and would again and again and again—

He laughed as they hauled him up the stairs and he laughed as they shoved in in front of Aaron to face his adjudicating gaze—he was going to be a _fantastic_ lawyer and Spencer would be his first experience with the depravity of the human race—and he remembered why he was laughing.

_Hi, baby,_ his memory purred with a hand slipped down his shirt. “Hi, baby,” he repeated coldly, as Aaron stared at him like he was a stranger. And he was a stranger, to them, to himself, to everyone. They were just learning this now, but it had been true all along. He’d just been _hiding_ it.

The Spencer they’d known had died years ago.


	42. Pandemonium, Four

Exhausted and cruel, Spencer stared Aaron down and wondered if he could see the ghost of Connors staring back. Aaron didn’t want him to lie. What a request. What a _stupid_ request. All they were was _lies_.

“You’re so stupid sometimes, Aaron,” Spencer told him tiredly, sick of the boy in front of him who wasn’t a man yet and sick of the boy he himself was, who would never really be a man because he had no idea what responsibility was. He just kept chasing it away with the sharp-edged tip of a needle, laughing every time he drew blood. _So stupid,_ and Spencer needed to illustrate just how stupid, in this room that smelled like Aaron and cologne and male, so he surged to meet his boyfriend when Aaron stepped towards them and showed him how broken he fucking was.

The kiss was rough and frantic and flavoured with fear and Spencer could feel the drugs draining his sanity and his composure and trying to force him out of this moment. He tried to cling to it, refusing to let the _someone_ that had been ruling his behaviour over the past few hazy, terrified weeks take control in this moment, but it was a fight he was losing and had lost the moment he’d shot up instead of facing Connors like a man.

Aaron staggered under him, hitting the desk with a _thump_ and a gasp. He didn’t close his eyes and lean into the kiss, he didn’t embrace Spencer; instead, he shoved Spencer away.

Spencer went. Breath rasping and panic whistling up his spine, the coke was declining and leaving him lethargic and slow and panicky as he realized his cognitive functions were fading. He went, physically and mentally. Tried not to go.

Went anyway.

He was cold. Cold and slow and scared, the heroin turning him mean like it always did, a conduit for Connors’ hands on him. Aaron was warm and distantly, so distantly, as though an observer in his own cruel, monstrous body, Spencer pressed close to that heat and nipped at a slipped-open lip. Tasted the ragged breath as Aaron inhaled and exhaled and went rigid against him from top to toe.

“Stop!” Aaron yelled, and the shout shook Spencer the whole way through. Thudded into him like a hammer. He tremored with it, tried to choke, _help me,_ but instead he closed his eyes and swayed. “Jesus, fuck, _no_ , Spencer. You’re going to bed so I can kick your ass when sober.”

_Going to bed,_ Spencer heard, and shuddered again. Rubbed his hand against his thigh, feeling the palm tingle and burn where Connors had touched it. _Just how you like it_ , and is that what would have happened? If he’d taken that drink? Laced nice and pretty to make him sleepy and supple, to get him high. Like he was now. Was that Aaron’s plan too? Spencer looked at him. He looked like the Aaron that Spencer had always known, always always always, but inside, just like Spencer, maybe he’d turned rotten. Maybe he’d turned cruel. Maybe he was just like Connors. Maybe he was getting off on this, seeing Spencer like this, wasn’t that how love _worked_? Love wasn’t safe or kind or lasting; it was sex and running before the blow fell and it was waiting for everything to crash down overhead—there was nothing _safe_ about love.

He slipped forward, sliding his hand up Aaron’s warm thigh, skidding his hot palm against the material over Aaron’s crotch. His gut twisting and eyes burned; he almost expected to find that Aaron was hard. Why wouldn’t he be? With Spencer like this? Like they _wanted_.

He wasn’t.

Instead, he lashed out, his knee between them as they panted and stared each other day. Keyed up and off-centre, Spencer smirked at him, desperate to find out if history would repeat itself as it was doomed to do. If he’d wake in the morning bleeding and hurt and twisted inside.

“No!” Aaron breathed, his voice tight and scared. Good. He should be scared. Spencer would _know_ him after this. Know the man who’d sent him to face his nightmare without even a thought to keep him safe. “What the _fuck,_ Spence?”

Like he didn’t know.

_Liar._

“You wanted the truth,” Spencer snarled, or tried to. But he was still an observer, trapped by the drugs and the needle-marks on his arms and the scars on his soul. He punctuated each statement with a step forward, pushing closer and tighter and trembling as he sought any kind of escape. He wanted to run and never stop running.

“Here it is.” _I’m just a body to you._

“There it is.” _I’m worth nothing except what that body can offer._

“Not nice, is it?” _Except, it is. It’s so so lovely. I can be whatever you need me to be, if you let me dope myself into oblivion._

“This is  _me_ _,_ Aaron. How I am. And I’m  _repugnant_.”

_I’ll only hurt you._

But Aaron was staring at him in a way Spencer recognised but barely remembered. Not cold, not calculating. There was none of Clary’s twisted amusement, none of Ethan’s self-sacrificial determination, none of Elle’s tired pity. Nothing like that at all traced his features. Instead, it was soft and hurt and confused and just as broken as Spencer felt. A flush of hot panic chased around the cold and Spencer felt himself buckle into that expression, his gut twisting tight and hurting him as he realized where he’d seen an expression like that before.

Ross had looked at him like that once. Just once. _Why would you tell them I hurt you Spencer?_

He cried out. He was dropping. The drugs pulled him down into blessed nothingness but they’d fucked up, waited too long, and he was back in his body and feeling every twist and twinge of pain and hurt. Aaron was holding him tight, trying to cling to him as he tried to slip away, and Spencer felt everything he was feeling squeeze out in a slithering rush that became a wounded noise slipping from his lips.

“No, no, God, no,” Aaron was whispering, chanting, perhaps to himself, perhaps to _God_ , who Spencer hated in that moment and in all the moments beforehand, because God didn’t fucking _know_ what a fifteen-year-old boy could and couldn’t handle, “Never. This is… we can fix this. If you tell me what the hell happened.”

Spencer dipped. Dizzy and wild, he turned and wavered and saw Aaron and everyone who’d ever asked him that. The people who hadn’t believed him, the people who had believed him but refused to help, the people who’d believed him and been powerless to do anything, the people who’d believed him and hated him for it.

“What happened?” Spencer laughed, at himself and at Aaron and at them because _what had happened_ was that a stupid, weak little boy had fallen and fallen and fallen and never managed to get the fuck back up. Curled in a ball where he’d hit the ground so long ago, using the drugs to hold himself there until Connors had calmly walked back into his life and: “He offered me a  _drink_ , Aaron. I presented my speech and he walked up, shook my hand, smiled, and offered to buy me a fucking drink. ‘Just how I used to like it,’ he said. How  _fucked_  is that?”

Pain. He’d bitten his lip. There was blood on Aaron’s mouth. Nothing made sense. There was shouting and yelling and hurt and blood and Spencer dragged himself up and away and felt it all—

Stop. He stopped. Let the someone else take over. The someone else who was cruel and pretty and knew how to be human when Spencer couldn’t. The someone else who loved being high and being mindless and loved letting people fuck him until he could smile and laugh and believe that this was what he wanted. Arms itching, cold sweat oozing, the room was spinning, twisting, and he twisted with it, thinking maybe he’d taken too much, not enough, too _much_ —

He was crying. He was crying, like a child. Like the child he’d been, too weak to defend himself.

_I want to go,_ he tried to beg. _I don’t want it._

He might have said this. He might have said instead, _I wanted it._ He might have said far too much and not enough and everything he’d never ever wanted to have between them before. But even dying, even high, he managed to hold the one thing close; the one thing he’d never say out loud.

_I was thinking about you when it happened. I thought you’d save me._

_You didn’t._


	43. Recrudescence

Recrudescence.

The revival of material or behaviour that had previously been stabilised or diminished. Otherwise known as the pattern of addiction. A tedious, circular design of maladaptive behaviour and thinking. It was exhausting to live and, Spencer was sure, utterly fatiguing to watch from the outside looking in. Despite understanding this—despite understanding the theoretical reasoning for his behaviours and mannerisms, despite knowing that he was a carbon-cut copy of a billion addicts just like him all around the world self-medicating in the face of their troubles, of men performing acts of hegemonic masculinity where opiates were easier than failing that presentation, he still tumbled gleefully back into absolute recidivism.

And now, everybody knew why.

Aaron was making him go to therapy. He’d struck the morning after, as Spencer had wrestled his contacts out of gritty, weeping eyes, striking right to the heart of the problem. _It wasn’t rape_ , Spencer had protested, despite logically knowing that—had it happened to anyone else but him—it was exactly that. Despite, rationally, being aware that Ross Connors had used his position of trust and authority to take advantage of a lonely and confused teenager.

But there was knowing that and there was _knowing_ that. _I initiated it,_ Spencer continued objecting, and that he could believe. Placing himself in the position of the aggressor. That he could do. Hadn’t his entire life since that night been him replicating that data over and over and over again? Adding further support to his hypothesis that something about him had, that night, lured a professional and dignified man into risking everything to try and connect with that same young boy. If Spencer could find a way to blame himself, he absolutely would. And that allowed him to justify everything that came with it. The drugs, the sex, the all-encapsulating self-loathing.

Was it any surprise that he’d failed again?

Beyond that day, the morning after, he and Aaron didn’t discuss it. Spencer suspected that Aaron was more shocked than he knew how to verbalize, that he didn’t quite understand _how_ to broach the subject. He didn’t really blame him. It wasn’t exactly something expected, having your childhood best friend/flame vanish and reappear years later as used goods. Twisted and broken in some indelible way. He never shared this thought with Aaron; Aaron would never understand how much Connors had changed him. Too wrapped up in believing that everyone could be saved.

Even Spencer.

Ethan was just as delusional, if blunter in his approach.

“Hi,” he said simply, the day that Spencer finally crept home. They hadn’t seen each other since the night of the relapse. Spencer stood, uncomfortable and out of place, in the doorway of the kitchenette with his bag by his side and his face burning. Ethan watched him from his perch on the counter, a mug of coffee in his hand steaming slightly. “Coffee?”

“Please,” said Spencer. His voice was hoarse, overwrought. He hadn’t used since that night but he knew it wouldn’t be long before he tumbled gleefully back into it. He was too raw, too exposed. He needed to be less.

Five times the spoon Ethan was stirring the mug with rapped against the side. The rasp of metal on ceramic grated on the last of Spencer’s nerves. He twitched with each one, eyes locked on the flex and pull of tendons in Ethan’s narrow wrist. When Ethan slid the coffee on the table in front and sat down beside him, dragging their mismatched dining chairs closer with a scrape of wood on linoleum, Spencer wasn’t shocked. Just curled his hand around the warm mug, tucked his feet behind the bag between his legs, and studied his jeans intently to avoid Ethan seeing how his face was burning.

Because he knew; Ethan had been there that night. Ethan had seen it all, heard it all. Everything Spencer had wanted to keep hidden.

“We’re gonna talk, kid,” Ethan said, his tone low and soft and hurting. Spencer stared harder at the weave of denim, the burn of his face leaking down to spread across his chest and up to pinch at his eyes. Talking to Aaron was one thing. Aaron had never seen him at his worst. Ethan? Ethan had seen everything in him that Connors had; seen every foul, twisted aspect that he’d tried to keep bundled up inside. “Do you want to start?”

“What’s the point?” Spencer muttered. “What could I possibly say that—”

“Rape destroys boundaries,” Ethan cut in. Spencer blinked and looked up at him, stunned. “I’m disrespecting those boundaries right now by not giving you a choice in whether you talk to me or not, because you _are_ gonna talk to me, but I am respecting them in that you can choose what you say. You want to talk about the drugs, you do it. You want to talk about Aaron? Fine. Me and how much you resent me for this? That’s fine too. Or I can talk. I’m not a therapist though, I’m not a psychologist and I’m not trained to fix things, but I am your friend. I can listen. Maybe I should have started listening years ago, instead of making my own assumptions. Might have started helping you sooner instead of just enabling you.”

Spencer stared, pretty sure that someone had broken in and replaced his roommate with someone else while he hadn’t been looking. “What’s brought this on?” he asked, studying Ethan carefully: the tired lines to his face and the red tinge around his eyes. There was a suggestive shade of stubble on his jaw that suggested he hadn’t shaved, but his breath was clear of the sour alcohol tang.

Ethan shrugged, slouching back against the chair and puffing a thread of hair out of his eyes. “Talked to Elle,” he said, “she gave me some advice on what to say, how to say it. You’re a smartass though, you’ll see through it if I try to do it without telling you. I wanted her to be here, figured I couldn’t be what you needed right now. Failed you enough already—and see, she said _specifically_ not to make it about myself and there I go—but she said you need… need me more than you need her.”

They’d never talked like this. Not really. Not with this wall between them that was somehow easier to scale than the one between him and Aaron. Spencer wiggled in his seat to give himself time to think of an answer, picking at a patch of dirt on his thigh with one grubby thumbnail.

“I do need you,” he whispered finally, letting the truth slink out between his gritted teeth. “I understand the recursive patterns of behaviour I indulge in, even if not during the actual acts of undertaking those behaviours. I can’t—won’t— _can’t_ talk about it with you, Eth, I can’t, but… I do need you. You… you said no… every time I tried to use you, to pull you into my bed, you said… no.” It felt very, very important that Ethan know this. That he understood why it was important.

Ethan’s hand slipped forward, hesitating only a second before wrapping around his and holding tight. Warm and dry and encompassing, Spencer let him do it and took comfort from the singular touch. “Elle says there’s a loss of power, a loss of control,” Ethan said, his eyes downcast. Spencer shuddered seeing the pain there, as though he was running over every moment Spencer had lashed out, pulled him in, wrapped himself closer and whispered _you want this_. “It limits your ability to manage your world. You said ‘no’ once and it meant nothing, so—”

“Might as well say yes to everyone, even if they don’t ask,” Spencer finished. “I’m in control; I’m deciding that they’re going to have sex with me, not the other way around. But that never worked with you. I kinda… kinda thought you knew…” He had to stop to breathe, his throat tightening painfully as his chest constricted.

Ethan looked up sharply at that, his green eyes overbright and cheeks pink on the high points. “No,” he said, “I _suspected_ , but I never knew. I honestly thought you’d been, I don’t know, abused as a kid or something… nothing so _recent_. Jesus, Spence, you should have told me! Not about that, the actual… that… but you should have told me _who_ , that he was back, you…” He snapped his mouth shut so hard his teeth clicked together, clearly struggling to find the words: “… you went _alone_ into hell because you thought, what, I was mad at you? For Elle? Shit, _fuck_ , Spencer, yes, I was mad! No, I wouldn’t have abandoned you! I would have _been_ there… I… we all would…” And he stopped with a low sound, his face, impossibly, crumpling.

Spencer froze, helpless and stunned, as Ethan began to cry. He’d never seen this. Not once, not when Gram had been ill, not during the worst of his addiction, not… once. His friend’s shoulders bowed over as though there was some impossible weight on them, his body shaking as he tried to choke the tears back and instead coughed his way into helpless sobs that seemed to pull up from somewhere deep and sore inside of him. Real, actualized crying.

“I only ever wanted to help,” Ethan managed, his voice _fucked_ from tears, his eyes red and nose running, “I only ever want to help…and I didn’t, I didn’t… I didn’t…”

There was nothing Spencer could think to do but pull his chair closer and wrap his arms around his friend, pulling the broader man against his chest and holding him close as he broke apart. Ethan was hurt, so fucking hurt, and Spencer clung on tight and tried not to choke on the guilt overwhelming him.

This was his fault, and he didn’t know how to fix it.

 

* * *

 

It didn’t fall apart suddenly. The night of the conference was the culmination of a chain of events that had been put into motion months, possibly years, before. Spencer knew this. Rationally, he knew that this downslide had been a long time coming, compounded by his inability to take control of his life and repent for his past mistakes without leaning heavily on those around him.

But, before it fell completely apart, they had one last day. It wasn’t perfect. But it was good.

It was an uncomfortably dry day. The wind blasted their faces and clothes as they walked together in the middle of a loud crowd celebrating a county fair. Simon and Kate had long vanished: Kate towards the petting zoo, Simon towards a stall selling complicated arrays of balloon animals.

“I’ve never been to a carnival,” Spencer had commented earlier that day, leaning on the back of the couch and watched the advert for one playing on Simon’s battered television set. Three heads had turned to face him, all stunned. “Mom wasn’t a fan. We tended towards… quieter recreational activities.”

They’d decided to rectify that immediately, and here they now were.

Spencer’s face was sore from grinning and from the harsh wind, his clothes were filthy, his hands probably covered in every kind of pathogen imaginable; he was broke and over-heated and definitely overtired and just about ready to go home. Aaron didn’t look much better, his dark hair whipped up into a wild nest of cowlicks and his cheeks ruddy from the wind. Spencer paused to try and tug the man’s shirt back into some kind of neatness, laughing as Aaron knocked his hands away.

“We’re allowed to be a mess here, Spence,” Aaron rumbled, hooking his thumb through Spencer’s beltloop and tugging him against his side in a quick and fleeting hug. “It’s a _fair_. People don’t care if you get muddy.”

“I’m not really inclined to be muddy,” Spencer said, wishing they weren’t in public so he could hug the man properly. There was a dull ache building in the back of his skull, his skin beginning to itch with the onset of withdrawal, but he didn’t want this day to end with a needle and a manufactured chemical rush. “Do we have to leave yet?”

Aaron stopped, almost bowling over two girls running hand in hand and causing a woman with a stroller to swerve violently to avoid him, the baby cackling away. Cattle lowed nearby; there was a swell of yells from a ride that was far too fast and at a much too violent angle for Spencer to even consider going near; the crowd almost drowned out his: “I have an idea.”

And here they were.

It was quiet up here, aside from the wind. The ancient Ferris wheel creaked and groaned as aged supports worked to trundle riders up and above the carnival below. Spencer spent a good chunk of the first third of their ride twisted backwards and studying the structural integrity while Aaron craned forward and kicked his feet above the shrinking heads below.

“Did you know some rides now prohibit single riders on Ferris wheels to try and avoid suicide attempts?” Spencer commented, turning back from his observation of their likelihood of plunging to their spectacular deaths to find Aaron looking at him, his eyes solemn. 

“That’s stunningly morbid, thanks Dr. Doom,” Aaron said, wiggling across and wrapping his arm around Spencer’s shoulder as the wheel slowed to give them an orange-hued view of the surrounding countryside and the grey-fogged whisper of DC on the horizon. His hand rubbed Spencer’s shoulder, his mouth and nose nestling against his hair, and Spencer relaxed and let himself just enjoy the moment. “You look tired.”

“I am tired,” Spencer replied quietly. “I’m always tired. Thank you, for today. It was… wonderful. I can repay you…”

Aaron shook his head. “Don’t. We both needed to get outta DC, clear our heads. I’m your boyfriend, Spence. I’m allowed to spoil you sometimes, even if the reason your broke is because you spent your pay on…” They both went quiet, huddling closer. “…I wish I could _help_ you.”

“You do help me?” Spencer said sharply, snapping his head around to stare at his partner and almost headbutting the man on the nose. “Always, Aaron. My faults are not yours to carry.”

Aaron was quiet, until: “Remember when we met?”

“Of course. I remember everything about that time, everything… you on the fence, showing off.”

The shoulder against his began to shake as Aaron laughed silently, the sun in his eyes and squinting to avoid being blinding. “I wasn’t showing off. You were so weedy, I didn’t need to show off to impress you. Tiny squeaky thing with your backpack and polo shirt. I knew I had to be friends with you straight away—you were so _little_ , you needed a friend.”

Spencer couldn’t help but laugh at his affectionate tone, despite the ache building and spreading to twist through his muscles and darkening this moment. “Maybe _you_ weren’t showing off, but I was. All those bugs and reptiles I kept ‘finding’ in Rhosgobel? Half of them I went looking for just to show off how much I knew about wildlife… you were always so fascinated, I loved telling you about them…”

Against his side, Aaron had stopped laughing. “Remember when you visited me in New York,” he murmured, the wind quietening now as lights snapped on below, “we stayed up all night talking about nothing, horror movies, trading cards, just… kid stuff. We were such kids. Sean took us to Times Square ‘cos you’d never been…”

“I wouldn’t shut up about capitalism and the history of the advertisement until he told me if I was quiet he’d let me pick what ice cream we all got to eat. We _were_ kids, Aaron. Of course, we were. We were just… kids.” Without the wind, it was warming up. Spencer tugged his light jacket off, folding it onto his lap and neatening the sleeves to distract from his burning face. “I was in love with you then, you know. Helplessly so.”

“I know,” Aaron replied quietly. His fingers dipped into view, in Spencer’s lap, tracing a line from his wrist up to the crook of his elbow. Spencer shivered. He knew the track-marks were visible. He’d taken the jacket off anyway, tempted this, allowed it. Flaunted how much they’d changed since that day in Times Square. Aaron’s fingers touched against a bruised line ending in the scabby graze where Spencer had itched and itched and itched, a feather light touch on skin where Spencer was only ever cruel. “I loved you since Rhosgobel. And I love you still.”

Spencer looked up in time for Aaron to lean forward and kiss him without any of the force and desperation he usually put into his kisses, his hand still curled around Spencer’s arms.

“Tell me about good things,” Aaron said as they broke apart, breathing gently on each other as their noses bumped, eyes still almost close. “Tell me about things you love, now, then, anything _good_. There has to be something good to come out of this, this… _shit_.”

Spencer blinked. He thought. And, as the Ferris wheel came to its peak with them alone in the sky, he began: “When I was fifteen…” Aaron stiffened: “…I met Ethan. I guess… he’s my best friend. He saved my life. I… could talk about… Ethan?”

And Aaron smiled. “Please.”

Spencer did.

 

* * *

 

But then came the after. The downward slide. A cascading failure of every mistake he’d ever made, the utter destruction of everything he’d tried to rebuild. And, like an observer to the implosion of his own life, he stood on the sidelines and did nothing until they were sunk so deeply into their shared misery that they couldn’t escape. The worst bit was: it wasn’t always terrible. There were bright moments in the dark.

There was being with Aaron and knowing he’d burn to keep this light alive.

There was waking up in a cold sweat and shooting up to stop from screaming his terror out into the world.

There was sitting with Ethan and renewing their friendship with music and quiet words of support, going to his shows, watching as people slowly began to talk about him as a musician in his own right instead of a back-up to other people’s work.

There was Ethan finding him curled up stoned and useless in the bathroom and dragging him to bed, a fixed look of disgust on his features.

When he was high, he was combative. The terror of that night had become a relentless spitfire fury that presented itself as a temper that snapped from one extreme to the other. He fought with Aaron. Viciously. He used the still-sore memory of the messages Aaron had sent him to needle to twist the knife in deeper and deeper until Aaron started biting back, fighting back.

When he was high, he could remember being happy. Heroin to drop him into a blessed sleep of wistful dreams and fading memories; until even his dreams began to fracture and twist and memories of him teaching Aaron how to tie different knots became memories of him watching and smiling as Aaron’s dad beat him using those same knotted ropes.

He didn’t go back to work. It was a shock for him to realize that he didn’t do much of anything anymore: sleep fitfully, eat little, get high, fight with Aaron, go home, fight with Ethan, repeat. Therapy. A few days of respite where everything seemed hopeful, a clear path forward. Then, recidivism. Men came looking for him. He spent two days sleeping in Elle’s corner with Ethan in her bed, hiding while the final blow fell on Elliot Kyle’s organization. When they returned home after the operation closed, over sixty arrests made, their apartment door was kicked in, their belongings scattered.

Spencer barely cared for his; he had very little of material belongings he cared about, beyond a box of a letters and a small collection of his mother’s books, both ignored.

Ethan had removed anything he cared about, and so they quietly cleaned and hid the evidence of the break-in without reporting it. There wasn’t much point.

Court began. Spencer did as they asked and nothing more. Elle murmured about Witness Protection; he declined. He couldn’t care enough about himself to remove himself from the only aspects of life he still found comfort in. He made sure to be sober just enough that he passed the uranalysis Elle gave him; he was never high on the stand.

Ethan was waiting outside during recess, an unlit smoke in his fingers. Spencer found him leaning against a column, staring down a leaf-strewn DC street. People bustled around them, light coats and hats covering the previously summer clothes. Autumn was here. Without a word, Spencer accepted the smoke Ethan offered him, rough pads of his fingers catching on the untreated wool of the fingerless gloves the other man wore. He lit it and inhaled in one swift move, shivering at the burn of the nicotine as he fought the cough that tried to rip out of him.

“I hate this,” Ethan muttered. “You’re so… empty up there. Robotic.”

Spencer looked away. “It’s what they want of me,” he lied. He wasn’t empty because they wanted him to be; he was empty because, when he was sober, that’s what he was.

Nothing.

He didn’t tell Aaron, he didn’t talk about what happened to him in therapy, and he didn’t get better. He tried to have sex with Aaron and it ended badly, every time. Aaron was distant, uninterested. Perfunctory.

Aaron between his legs, his head heavy on Spencer’s thigh as he used his mouth in the same deliciously clever fashion he always used it, lashes brushing Spencer’s stomach as he moved with the sway of Spencer’s hips, their hands tangled together. It was slow, gentle; his other hand was splayed on Spencer’s stomach and Spencer felt almost normal in this one finite moment.

But when it became his turn to reciprocate, his turn to show the other man how much he loved him—despite the darkness that was settling down onto their world—Aaron didn’t respond. Not even a flicker of interest in his gaze or his body, still soft and almost bored no matter what Spencer tried.

“I’m tired,” Aaron said, pushing Spencer back and tilting away. “We’ll try again some other time, Spence.” But his eyes were blank, his face expressionless, and Spencer had known. The fault laid, not with Aaron, but with Spencer.

He didn’t blame Aaron. He wouldn’t be attracted to him either. Sex with him now could only ever be a reminder of Spencer’s past fuck-ups. From Connors and onwards… he wasn’t the kind of person someone like Aaron should be taking to bed. Sick with self-loathing, Spencer curled up with his back to Aaron and they didn’t speak. After that, they didn’t try again. Spencer didn’t tempt it. He kept away. He was lonely. He ached. When he was home, alone, he got himself off desperately wishing Aaron was there with him and he did it with a savage determination that he would never ask for any kind of satisfaction, sexual or otherwise, from the man he loved. He couldn’t give him that anymore. Not now that he _knew_.

And then it was suddenly Aaron’s twenty-first birthday, and nothing was any better.

Instead, it, somehow, got worse.

“You’ve been quiet lately,” one of his research students commented. The one thing he’d managed to hold together; his position at the college. They simply wouldn’t allow any further slack to be given on his performance here, he’d failed them one too many times before. “Maybe you’re overworked. It’ll be good to have another pair of hands helping you out soon.”

“Hmm?” Spencer asked, looking up from the reams of data he was cleaning of errors. “Help?”

She nodded, nudging aside a stack of quizzes he’d meant to assign to one of the TAs to help him mark and leaning down to examine his work. “Yeah, we have a new professor starting. Craig said they were looking to place him in this department, to see if he can help us with replicability. Didn’t you know?”

Spencer hadn’t. He left her there with the data and slipped through to the teaching offices, finding the board of appointments and, somehow, bizarrely, finding exactly what he’d expected. Of course, it was him. It had to be him.

Spencer had never been one to catch a break when he needed it.

_…We are pleased to announce the temporary appointment being filled by_

_visiting associate Dr. Ross Connors,_

_beginning in the 2002-3 teaching period…_

 

* * *

 

Spencer knew it had been the last time. He absolutely knew it. He knew it as he showered the next day, washing away the fragile signs of that last time together, Aaron’s words running over and over and around his brain in endless loops of desperation.

“I love you so much I think sometimes I’ve gone a little mad with it,” he’d begun, his eyes wild, his lips swollen and parted as he panted heavily. Spencer was between the wall and him, seeing the manic gleam to his eyes, the frantic patter of his boundless heart. Staring blankly at the Aaron as he choked and closed his eyes and urgently babbled: “I’ve never  _not_  loved you, even before we’d met the first time. Remember the quarry? When we stood on the fence in the storm and you reached for me?  _That_ was when I knew it, Spencer. That moment. That moment was  _everything_. Whatever part of me I give to other people when I fall in love with them, I gave it all to you that day.”

Towel-wrapped and still dripping, Spencer slipped into his bedroom and looked down at his sleeping boyfriend, pale in the morning light seeping through his shitty curtains. The sheets were tangled, the blanket sliding off. Spencer crouched, pulling the blankets more firmly over broad shoulders, a firm bicep, bowing his head to kiss those lax lips. Aaron made a soft noise in his sleep, shifting almost unconsciously towards Spencer as though he needed him, somehow.

_“Please, love, please. I can’t bear you pushing me away, not anymore, please, I just need you,”_ he’d begged and begged before begging him to stop, to stop pushing him away, to stop _ending_ them.

But it was an end. That had been a goodbye. Every iota of it, every kiss, every caress, every moan, was a goodbye in some final fashion.

_I’m never going to not love you_.

But he needed to. Spencer had been blinded by his own misery, hiding it all with drugs and self-loathing. He knew now; Aaron wasn’t disgusted by what Spencer had allowed to be done to him.

He was destroyed by it.

Spencer stood silently and padded to his notebooks, finding the nondescript one on top and opening it to the latest page. In there, was Aaron. Everything Spencer had done to him.

He should have realized sooner.

“I’m sorry,” he repeated, closing his eyes and feeling the paper shift as his hands shook. “I’m sorry, Aaron…”

He went to his therapist, alone. Benefit of being as fucked up as he was; if he said the situation was urgent, the man made time for him.

“Are you finally ready to talk, Spencer?” John asked quietly.

Spencer slid the book across the desk. “Yes,” he answered. “But not about me. My par… my partner, Aaron. He’s depressed and struggling and I think—it’s my fault. I need you to help him. If you want to help me, you need to help him.”

The man paused where he was paging through, his eyes skimming the journal’s scratchy writing. It was all in there. All of it. The drugs, Connors, _Aaron._

And he nodded. Spencer relaxed.

At least one of them would come out of this whole. He was determined that it would be Aaron.

 

* * *

 

And then he hit it: breaking point. Ethan was there to see it, and maybe that was the worst part.

It started with a note on his desk. _Spencer, I’ve been trying to catch up with you. Would you like to get a drink?_

It ended with this:

Standing frozen against the wall, trapped in his apartment like a rat as the man outside knocked. At his hip, his cell-phone was silent. He could call for help. He could answer the door. Ethan was home, he could call out. He could open the door. He could…

Shut down.

_Knock knock,_ went the door, mocking him. His breath whistled and caught; he was choking. His chest was pulling in, his arms turning numb, his brain short-circuiting. Panic hit, but without the adrenaline rush of hearing a shout down the hall of his apartment building and turning to find Ross Connors standing there.

_I’ve been waiting. I want to talk to you._

Spencer had bolted into his apartment, slammed the door, latched it, and checked the bolt twice. Now he was standing here, helpless, while Connors knocked again and said, “Spence, please. I just want to talk—”

Spencer shook his head, muted and small and helpless in the apartment that was suddenly airless and enclosed. He took another step back and stumbled, fell, his head rapping hard against the wall and knocking one of Ethan’s pictures to the ground. It smashed, glass shattering across the floor, and Spencer fumbled for it trying to clean it up trying to pick it up to silence it to—

“I know you’re there. I can hear you. Just open the door…”

A hand touched his shoulder and he almost screamed, lurching around and staring wide-eyed with a panicked _how did he get in_ that only faded barely when he realized it was Ethan. Ethan with his long hair tied back into a messy ponytail, his eyes huge and oddly childlike as his gaze switched from Spencer to the door. Cell phone in hand. _Who_? his mouth shaped carefully, crouching down with twin pops of his knees and easing Spencer up and out of the glass, leaning in close and trying again: “Who is that?”

Spencer couldn’t do anything but shake.

“Fine, _fine_ ,” huffed Connors, his voice muffled. “I’ll just talk from out here, then. Spence, _please_. I want to clear the air. What happened, it wasn’t like you imagined it. I want to _help_ you.”

And, around Spencer’s shoulders, Ethan’s fingers suddenly gripped tight. Face washed out, mouth pulled thin: Spencer watched as he switched from concerned to terrifyingly dangerous in two short steps.

He came back to life. Forced his way through the gut-wrenching fear and grabbed his friend’s hand as Ethan went to stand, to walk to that door, to _open it_.

“Please,” Spencer gasped, and knew he was going to be sick, “don’t. Ethan, please, don’t—” And he broke, hyperventilating in short, frantic wheezes that weren’t enough to suck air into his lungs, his vision spotting black, he managed: “Don’t, I’m scared, please, don’t, don’t—”

Ethan didn’t. He didn’t even seem to think twice, just turned his back on Connors’ voice still seeping through the door like a rat chewing its way into a loaf of bread and boldly lifted Spencer from the floor. They walked or, rather, hobbled up the hall, closing the centre door behind them. One barrier between them and Connors. Spencer pulled loose and—now he had some distance between him and the man he feared—bolted for the bathroom, but Ethan caught him and pulled him into his room, closing that door as well. Spencer opened his mouth to speak and, instead, felt the ground tip under him as his lungs screamed for the air he couldn’t think to breathe.

When he came to, he was huddled on the bed, against the wall, with Ethan’s back against him as the man picked up his keyboard, propped it across his lap, leaned back closer, and said calmly, “Want to hear what I’ve been working on?” He played, loudly, until there was silence outside, and then he held Spencer as every inch of the fear he’d battled with surged right back up to overwhelm him.

“He will never get you here,” Ethan promised, eyes dark and hand working tight circles into Spencer’s back as he rubbed it. “I promise you, Spencer. He will never, ever come near you in your home. I don’t care if we have to move to ensure it—you’re safe here.”

But Spencer knew; there was nowhere he could go where Ross couldn’t reach him.


	44. Pandemonium, Three

Ethan retreated to his room. Elle arrived three hours later and they talked with hushed voices in the kitchen before Elle knocked twice— _tap tap_ , gentler than she ever had before—and slid only half of her body into the room, as though nervous to come any closer.

“I’ll testify in front of a hearing that he’s harassing you if you want a restraining order,” she said quietly. He was silent, but she kept on: “If he contacts you via any electronic device, I can also shut that down fast. I have a friend, she’ll bend the rules to help you. But you need to ask.”

“I’m fine,” he rasped, tugging the blankets tighter over his shoulders and burrowing in. “I just need to sleep.”

“Here if you need to talk,” she said, and closed the door gently behind her. He lay awake, listening. To Ethan’s anger as he took out his frustration at his helplessness, raging about how he hadn’t _done_ anything except hide away. Listened to Elle soothing him, validating his anger and his hurt and his emotions. The kind of support that would keep him upright throughout this stormy weather, even as Aaron and Spencer buckled alone. He listened without wanting to as their voices turned quiet and shifted from the kitchen to the bedroom and then he dragged a pillow over his head and grieved his broken heart as they found another kind of rare solace in each other.

He was alone and he couldn’t escape that.

Connors was coming for him, and he couldn’t escape that either.

Except, he could.

He took a little, just to dull his screaming brain and the memories of Connors’ hands. He took a little more so he could sleep and not have to wince at every stifled noise through the paper-thin walls of their cheap-ass apartment, even though he knew they were trying to be quiet.

And then he took a little more because he could and there was no one there to stop him.

The rush hit, and then again, and then one more time, and when he opened his eyes he was out of his mind and not in his room anymore.

It had never been like this before. This chaotic, this disordered, this stormfront of pain as the floodgates to his memories opened and tried to drown him. Every coping mechanism had failed him; every iota of strength he possessed was drained.

He was pacing, circling, and they watched him crumble. Ethan dragging the blankets up and over himself in a panicked whirl of _Spencer what the fuck knock you asshole_ and almost baring Elle to the world. He’d interrupted. He was interrupting. He tried to stumble back towards the door and instead tripped clumsily into a trap made of his own flimsy recollection.

“We write letters to each other,” he began nervously, turning in place and splaying his hand down over what he knew was a coffee table in front of him, closing his eyes and feeling the paper shift below his palm in a phantom touch. “We’ve been friends for years.”

Silence behind him and then a rustle of blankets and _(a hand on his shoulder._

_“What do you write about?”_

_“I don’t know… everything. He’s my best friend. I tell him everything. College, Mom, stuff I think is cool.”_

_“Me?”_

_“Uh… nuh-not really. Um… no.”_

_“Why not? I’m important to you, aren’t I? A part of your life?”_

_“I just…”_

_“You’re very important to me, Spencer. I tell everyone about you, of course I do. I’m so proud of you. It hurts me to think that you don’t feel the same.”_

_“It doesn’t feel like)_ something I can tell you, I can’t tell you, he told me _not_ to!” Spencer opened his eyes, panting quickly with his stomach flipping and his head whirling his vision down in descending circles to the dusty ground. Ethan, wrapped awkwardly in the blanket as Elle tried to dress herself below the sheets, was talking to him. Coaxing him. Trying to get close, his eyes on Spencer’s arms and his pulse and his stupid fucking face.

“You can tell us, we keep telling you that,” Ethan was saying carefully, dodging closer as Spencer stepped away.

“Tell a fucking psychologist, that’s who you should fucking tell,” Elle muttered, vanishing below the sheet and emerging in Ethan’s Rock Lobster tee.

“He said I can’t,” Spencer disagreed, shaking his head and slinking down to his knees as they decided to stop knee-ing correctly, almost tipping his face into Ethan’s blanketed crotch. “He said _(you can’t tell anyone about this or I’ll get in trouble.”_

_“You told me telling people about you is because… we’re friends. Important to each other. You told me to tell Aaron about you.”_

_“Yes, but not this, Spencer. They don’t understand you—they think you’re a child. I don’t, I know who you **are**. This is much better kept between those who understand it. Do you like it?”_

_“Not really. At my age, my taste receptors aren’t really refined—alcohol and strong tasting substances tend not to—”_

_“Don’t think about it. Just drink. You’ll learn to)_ like it… I didn’t like it.”

“Okay, Spence, I think you _might_ have overindulged, because I’ve held rabbits with slower heartbeats than yours right now. Elle, there’s a box in the bottom of my wardrobe—passcode is—”

_(“It’s my duty to make sure you’re safe, Spence. I’m just making sure you’re safe.”)_

“Why’d you get me drunk first then?” His head on the carpet, someone’s hand curled around it, keeping him tipped on his side. “Why…?”

“Is this _Narcan_? You just keep this in the house? How the fuck did you get it?”

“Really, Elle? You’re looking at this and you’re asking me why I keep Narcan in the house? Don’t hit him with it unless he looks like he’s about to—”

“I know.”

_(“How did your visit with Aaron go?”_

_“I’m just trying to keep you safe.”_

_“Did you have sex with him?”_

_“Did you do anything?”_

_“Did you want to?”_

_“Spencer?”)_


	45. Pandemonium, Two

He was comfortably warm, curled up on the couch with a book on his knees and the fire crackling behind the child safe grate. Alice scribbled happily away at a picture on her artbook in front of her, wild loops of blue and green and purple. He envied her sense of style.

“Cat,” she declared, holding the picture up. Spencer slid to the ground, examining it studiously and nodding.

“Ah yes,” he said, “I see. A very surrealistic style you’ve incorporated there, dear Alice, very Salvador Dali.”

“No, cat,” she corrected him, giggling. “Cat, not doggy.”

“What are you doing on the floor, you two?”

Spencer turned, grinning up at Ross as he entered, the firelight making shadows that danced across his sharp features. “We’re critically analysing her artistry in the style of the surrealist ‘20s.”

“Well, Magritte, time to go home. Come on. I’ll drive you back to the dorms.”

Spencer gathered his things from the foyer, sidling back to the door of the living room and watching Carly pick Alice up and hug her close, kissing the toddler’s curly head. Ross stood close to them, smiling warmly with his arm around his wife’s waist.

Biting his lip, Spencer looked away. This house, this family… it only served to tease him with what he _couldn’t_ have.

“It’s late, Ross. Why drive him back to the dorms now? Just let him stay—we can make up the spare bed. I don’t like him being there all alone, surrounded by adults… it just doesn’t feel safe.” Carly’s voice wasn’t quite low enough and Spencer winced, uncomfortable with eavesdropping but unsure of how to avoid it.

“He’s not a kid. He’s fine, love. We’ll be back soon.”

“Make sure you invite him to dinner Sunday. At least we can make sure he’s fed.”

Spencer ducked into the doorway, grinning awkwardly as the young couple turned to look at him. With a giggle and a murmured, _Speece,_ Alice reached for him from her mom’s arms. “Night, Carly. Goodnight, Alice. Thanks for letting me babysit. We had fun.”

“Anytime, sweetie. It’s good to get out of you head sometimes and just relax. God knows, Ross never does.”

“Hey!”

_(He opened his eyes and blinked hazily around at the stark lighting of the room he was in now. Bathroom. Bathroom?_

_Oh no._

_“Don’t want it,” he slurred, curling tighter to the person squatting next to him and trying to ineffectually push the hand on his thigh away as he guessed what was coming. “Hurts.”_

_“Spence…”_

_“Don’t…”)_

“Goodnight, Spence,” Ross murmured, reaching into the backseat. “I know we’ve been… tense lately, but I’m glad you’re not nervous around me anymore. Carly and Alice love having you.”

Spencer wiggled uncomfortably, glancing up the pathway from the parking lot up to the dim lighting of the dorms. “I wasn’t nervous,” he protested. “I was just… confused, I guess. I don’t really know…”

But Ross was smiling, his expression sad as he passed Spencer his coat and bag, his hand lingering on them, shoulder tucked close and still bent over the centre console. “You don’t really know what family is like, I know. I know, Spence… I wish I could give you that.”

Ow. Spencer flinched, his heart thumping once and hands clammy. His face burned with shame and the knowledge that his longing was so plain to see, so openly worn… that Ross and maybe Carly both knew, maybe laughed over, how desperately he wished he was a part of their lives… more than just a student or a baby-sitter or—

“Don’t do that,” Ross said with a hiss, hand moving up to tilt Spencer’s face to his, palm cupping his cheek. “Ah, shit. Don’t cry… you know you can tell me anything, right? We’ve known each other long enough that you should know that—I won’t make you uncomfortable, not anymore. I promise, I won’t do that again, I won’t get mad like I did with the letter.”

Hesitating, Spencer breathed quickly and felt his skin heat under the palm on his cheek, tense and unsure, his heart slamming in his chest. He _had_ overreacted that night, Ross had explained it to him later, just been overreacting and no harm done…

“You know I think of you as family, right?” Ross pressed. Spencer stared.

“Really?”

“Of course. Please, don’t push me away again. Just tell me if you’re uncomfortable, but don’t push me away.” He was closer. Spencer didn’t know whether to shift away or lean in, to grab the doorhandle and lurch out into the night or to just sit here, frozen. If he hurt Ross, again, would he be so forgiving again? “Don’t be scared of me, love.”

Spencer blinked, and Ross kissed him. Soft and careful and _(Ethan held him steady as he dry-heaved, puking up everything and more that was currently making the rounds in his digestive system, his head thumping along with the sickening beat of the precipitated withdrawal. His leg ached where the Narcan had pinched home, hot and itchy under his jeans as Ethan’s hand rubbed at the muscle to help the drug dissipate into his bloodstream._

_He hated Narcan. Nothing was worse._

_Nothing._

_It only served as a reminder that he wished he’d died that night.)_

He wrote to Aaron. Later, he’d wonder what had made him so _stupid_ as to think Aaron would help him, that he _could_. He’d wonder why he’d been so stupid that he’d entrusted this to a letter instead of a phone call.

He’d wonder why he hadn’t told the whole truth. He wondered why he hadn’t told Aaron about the kiss that still burned or the gifts or the alcohol or the night Ross had made him write the first letter, they night they’d fought. Why he hadn’t admitted how helpless Spencer felt in the face of throwing away everything he’d ever wanted: a chance at a family, a sister he could love, a mom who wasn’t sick, a dad who was _proud_ of him.

Ross said he loved him, but he kept _pushing._

Aaron said he loved him, but Ross said that was _wrong…_

Spencer pressed his face into the letter on the desk, smelling ink and paper and tasting salt, trembling working up his arms to make the pen dance and skip about.

“I’m so lost,” he whispered, as though Aaron could hear him. “Help.”

Below his nose, the blurred, ‘ _Can I come see you? I’ll catch a’_ tore and became indistinct through his watering eyes. He tipped his head away quickly to avoid messing up the ink. He was running. That’s what this was. _What am I running from?_ he wondered, touching his lip where Ross had kissed him. _What do I think he’s going to do?_

But he was alone, so he didn’t dare answer that.

_(“Why this time?” Ethan asked him after, lying next to him on his mattress as Spencer tried and failed to sleep. Elle was gone, leaving them alone. “You didn’t fuck yourself up like that for nothing. Was it because he came here?”_

_Spencer curled closer, knees to chest, and murmured, “Aaron’s less because of me. He’s fading. I’m… I’m hurting him.”_

_“That’s not true…”_

_“I’m hurting you.” Spencer inched back as he said it, rolling over to look at his friend. “You should have left months ago, before this started again, this whole bullshit fucking cycle of me running and fucking people over.”_

_“I’m not going anywhere. What happened to you won’t destroy you unless you let it. Stop letting it.”)_

The letter was damning. Spencer read it once then twice and accepted that he was alone.

> I don’t think that’s a good idea right now. You’re stressed about college, I’m stressed about school. We’re both hurt and lashing out and it’s probably not a good idea to get together while emotions are so high. It’s not long until summer. We’ll come get you then, and figure things out then, okay? I promise. That gives us both time to calm down.
> 
> I still really care for you and always will.
> 
> I’ll see you in summer
> 
> Yours, Aaron
> 
> 02/13/1998

“I’m not going anywhere,” Ross had reassured him, and Spencer clung to that. No matter what happened, at least he wouldn’t be alone. Even if Aaron hated him now.

And he was scared of being alone, so he went back.


	46. Quiescence

There was a period of nothing. A period of quiescence: a state of quietness or inactivity. Nothing happened. Nothing got better. Nothing got worse. The only thing that changed wasn’t something visible; it was something within Spencer himself. That night, the night he’d ended up being shot with Narcan by Elle on the bathroom floor, that had revealed something to him. Something he hadn’t realized until now. Two somethings, in fact.

One: he remembered now. In bits and pieces in the darkest parts of the night and the early hours of the morning, he remembered. He suspected that he’d remembered all along. Nothing felt shocking to him. Nothing really felt like _anything_ to him anymore.

Which lead to the second thing: he’d almost overdosed that night.

And he wasn’t stupid, he wasn’t reckless. If he hadn’t fallen into his messy brain and found himself breaking apart in Ethan’s room, he would have gone to sleep in his own bed and never woken up. That didn’t feel like a mistake. Ethan seemed to think it had been. Elle didn’t share her opinion on it.

They didn’t tell Aaron, and Spencer considered dying.

Court ended and he didn’t care. Didn’t feel anything as the guilty verdicts fell one by one by one. They’d won; his record was clean. As far as anyone who checked his background was concerned, Spencer Reid had never been involved with Velvet Underground. The FBI knew better, but Spencer doubted that would ever matter.

On the final day of that case, he walked from the courtroom a free man without the debts hanging over him anymore, the fear, the paranoia, and he felt… nothing.

He felt nothing.

It didn’t matter. The night he’d told Ethan and Elle about Aaron fading, he’d lost.

It was ending.

He quietly planned his goodbye.

 

* * *

 

The impact he was having on those around him was tremendous, he realized that now. He wondered if his mom would recognise him now, see within him the child she’d raised. He doubted it. But, just to make sure, he called her for the first time in years.

When she answered, he felt _something_.

“Mom,” he said, curled on his couch with his robe pulled tight around his bowed shoulders and a blanket over his knees. “Hi…”

She was silent for the longest time, until he only knew she was still listening because of the whisper of her breath on the receiver. Finally, a muted: “Spencer,” sounded, muffled and thick and dangerously confused.

He didn’t know what to say now that he’d taken this step. Finally managed a stilted, “How are you?”

It was the wrong thing to say. She barked a cold laugh and replied, “How do you think? My son is a stranger, he’s gone, and then _you_ call…”

And he realized; she was having a bad day. Despite the years between them, he knew that tone of voice. He knew the miserable bite of anger that was never aimed at him unless she was struggling.

But she wasn’t finished: “…you call and you ask me how I’m _going_ , like no time has passed, like you care, like you—” When she began to cry, he added that to the reasons he deserved this.

“Oh,” he said, because she wasn’t sick today. She wasn’t having a bad day. She was just… hurt. He’d hurt her. “Mom, I… I care. I’m just busy with the college and my research and…” He took a chance: “and… Aaron.”

If they were looking for answers in the after, they could maybe find it in each other.

“Aaron?” she asked sharply, her voice shifting away from the phone and back as though she was moving around. “The boy?”

He nodded, as though she could hear him, his face heating a little with the _something_ he’d felt when calling her. She… she _remembered Aaron_. “Yeah, Mom, the boy… I found him.”

Diana laughed, the anger fading from her tone. For a heartbeat, Spencer relaxed. “See, Spence, this is why your father and I send you there every year. You have such fun with that boy. You must bring him home one day. I’ll get your father to talk to his parents—oh, he’ll be so _happy_ that you’re bringing friends home! You know, he worries.”

Oh.

“Oh,” said Spencer again, closing his eyes and pushing the something he’d been feeling away until he was feeling nothing again. That was safer than this. “Mom, we’re, he’s… he’s an adult. We’re adults now.”

“Why should that matter? Even adults should respect their parents, Spencer. I’m not sure I like you being friends with adults. You’re just a boy. How old is he?”

He probably deserved that.

“Would you like to know about a book I read recently?” he said instead, safer ground. He talked to her until she had to go, only wincing a little when she asked him to write. “I will,” he lied, and hung up the phone.

He felt nothing.

 

* * *

 

He didn’t know why he went to Clary’s. Maybe he was looking for a reason to stay, some purpose, even though he doubted he’d find absolution in the ratty light let through by the stained curtains hanging limply over her kitchen sink. At the kitchen table they sat, her foot tap tap tapping against the linoleum floor, smoke curling around her face from the cigarette he’d declined.

His hands were on the table, veins stark and blue against his pale skin. They shook. Her finger was alternating red and white as she wound a strand of hair back and forth around it, watching him with a gaze that had probably once been young and curious instead of blankly disinterested.

“Well?” she said hoarsely. She didn’t look well. He hurt a little. “What do you want? I ain’t got shit right now, not while the feds are sniffing around the area still. Kyle getting taken down has shaken everyone up.”

He knew this. His own supply had become fraught with distribution problems, and he was having to resort to his own berth of chemical tricks to ensure what he was buying wasn’t cut with anything untoward. But that wasn’t why he was here, he realized that now. He was here because he was pretty sure he’d reached the end of what he could stand, but some part of him still wanted to believe that everyone had a chance for more.

If Clary could be saved, maybe he could be too.

“I don’t want you to die,” he said suddenly, the words dropping into the room and shattering the waiting quiet. Clary froze, the smoke between her fingers twitching as her grip clamped down on it. Fear skated across her sallow features. He hurriedly continued, seeing her gaze switch towards the cupboard under her sink where he knew she kept a loaded handgun—knew because he’d shown her how to clean it, knew because he’d told her to keep it loaded: “This lifestyle, it’s going to kill you. You’re not unkind, you’re not cruel—you can find _more_.”

She stared at him before standing a jabbing her smoke out against the tabletop, leaving a grimy black ash line. “Get out,” she snapped. “Now, out, I want you out! You sanctimonious _asshole_ , get the fuck out of my house—”

“Sanctimonious?” He blinked, stalled for a moment by her choice of language. Surprised, a little, because maybe he was a little bit of a snob and that language choice was—

“What, you think you’re hot shit because you’re learned, huh, Spencer?” She stepped back, folding her arms over her chest in a show of anger that came off more as vulnerability. “I’m not stupid, I’m not _naïve_ —I went to college. Huh, you didn’t know that, did you?”

He hadn’t.

“I’m not like this because I _want_ to be, you little fuck. You think I don’t want a better life? You think I _like_ fucking sweet little things like you for a line of coke—you think I don’t want better than letting snakes like you into my bed?”

“I’ve never hurt you,” he replied quietly, huddling back into the chair with the back of his neck prickling. “But this lifestyle has… you deserve better.”

She stared at him. “What, like what you have?” she said. The show vanished. She just looked old, old and tired, and she said: “I’m thirty-two years old, kid. You’re, what, twenty-two? Twenty-three?”

It was a strange moment to realize she didn’t know his age. What did she see when she looked at him, he wondered. A boy? What did he look like now? He didn’t answer, because to do so would be to admit how young he’d truly been the first time he’d used sex as a currency with her.

“You have a job—an _actual_ job, with benefits and insurance and all the bells and whistles—you have friends who’ll hold you up. You have a _chance_ , Spencer, you’ve always had a fucking chance, and that doesn’t make you better than me…” He heard the breath she drew in from across the room, despite how much it wavered: “…it makes you worse. Me? I’m stuck like this. You? You’ve chosen it. Now get the fuck out of my house and go be a hypocrite elsewhere. I don’t want what you’re selling. Take a leaf out of your limp-dicked friend’s book—Ethan wouldn’t bother with someone like me.”

He didn’t look at her as he left that place for the final time, leaving behind nothing but his failure and his current cell phone number written on a matchbox; all he said as he walked from the room was: “I’m not Ethan.”

 

* * *

 

He waited until Ethan was at work and quietly burned the diary in the alley outside their shitty apartment, kneeling on the dirty ground and watching the pages curl and smoke and eventually crumble. He could see snatches of his handwriting eaten by the flames, the smell of burning paper and ink stinging his nose. He didn’t want Ethan to see how many pages were blank.

He was cold, except for where he faced his burning past; he was shaking, because he was sober.

He was sober, and he wanted to continue being so.

But it didn’t matter why anymore. It didn’t matter that Ethan had dragged him out of his past addiction, kicking and screaming and with the help of the diary that was nothing more than snatches of ash beginning to blow merrily in circles around Spencer’s feet. It didn’t matter, because there couldn’t be anything left that Ethan could look at and count as a failure. And this journal, this book of recovery and moving forward…

It was a fucking lie, and that was why Spencer burned it.

The fire out, he moved slowly upstairs, heavy limbed and assailed by the kind of exhaustion he wasn’t sure he’d ever felt before; a kind of bone-deep fatigue that dragged him down from the inside outwards, every step leaden, summoning him to his bed. But he couldn’t yet. He’d planned this month carefully. Tonight, Ethan would be home—perhaps Elle with him—and they needed something to wash away the last month.

He plastered a grin on his face and waited until Ethan arrived home, faking an enthusiasm that Ethan, somehow, didn’t see straight through, as he requested that they, “—do something together, come on—you’re so boring and _old_ these days. Invite Elle!”

Ethan eyed him warily. “What about Aaron?” he asked.

And Spencer lied: “He’s working.” He couldn’t give Aaron anything kind to cling to. Aaron wasn’t the sort of person who would welcome kindness in the face of loss.

But it was decided. They waited for Elle to finish her shift and picked her up after she’d showered and grumpily agreed to come along. It was Friday night, winter biting at their heavy clothes, and they drove into the night and straight on towards an uncertain morning.

Spencer knew where they were going. He drove. When they arrived, Ethan was silent but smiling. Elle just looked confused.

“It’s our beach,” Ethan said, kicking his boots off to walk barefoot in the icy sand. The sky was dark and cloudy, the moon obscured and without even a hope of glimpsing a star. The sea was dark and bottomless. “You remembered.”

“Of course,” Spencer said quietly, walking away from them and towards the pier, remembering a storm and a reaching hand.

_You were right,_ he thought to the ghost of Aaron standing there. _I hate growing up._

There was beer in the backseat that Spencer had shoved in there earlier, before Ethan had even gotten home, along with blankets, flashlights, a sketchpad. Ethan eyed the beer but took it anyway, drinking it hot without a care for the way the waves kept crashing against the sodden wood of the pier and spraying them all. Elle matched him drink for drink; they were loud and cheerful in the frosty winter night. Salt-laced in their woolly coats, cheeks and nose red with the cold. Spencer observed. An outsider sitting at their side, pretending he wasn’t out of place as Ethan succumbed to the alcohol and the cold and let Elle cuddle up against his side, feet lined up four in a row over the edge. Spencer pulled his up, sitting cross-legged. Not to be confused as one of them, smiling and alive and with everything ahead of them.

“So, kid,” Elle said suddenly, hours later when they were more tired than happy, and she looked at him with sleepy eyes. He paused, his pencil tapping on the page below his palm. He’d drawn them. Not well, he wasn’t an artist and there was nothing remarkable or eye-catching about his artistry when he was sober, but there was a moon in his picture that wasn’t visible in real life, his friends were framed by it, and their legs seemed to be swallowed by the wobbly reflection of the sky in the water below their floating feet. And she waited for him to make eye-contact with her before continuing: “What’s this about then? Tonight?”

Two pairs of eyes watched him; two attentive minds suddenly snap-focused on his fading existence. He wiggled backwards, uncomfortable, almost dropping his pencil in a crack between two water-warped boards. Elle reached out, steadying his book on his knees, sliding it towards herself until he relinquished his hold. She studied it attentively, as Ethan’s eyes never slipped away from Spencer.

“I just wanted a night to be us,” Spencer said honestly. “Just… us. How we are.” How they were: together and strong, while he needed to be alone. They’d help each other… in the after.

He shifted uncomfortably, ignoring the cognitive dissonance of what he was trying to convince himself.

“We should do it more,” Ethan said finally, his voice a little drunk and almost morose. “I feel like we’re trapped in a cycle of _nothing_ these days.

Spencer looked out at the dark ocean. Elle still held his book.

“I feel the same,” he said quietly.

They slept in the car and only after they’d driven home the next day and washed the salt from their frost-sore skin, did Spencer realized Elle had never given him his drawing back.

He didn’t really care.

 

* * *

 

They were silent driving home from therapy. They were silent in the walk upstairs. Aaron, in fact, had said absolutely nothing about what had happened in that white-washed room while Spencer had paced outside and tried not to worry himself into mania. Spencer wanted to ask. He _needed_ to ask. But he didn’t.

He didn’t know how.

And then there was no time for him to work it out. They were whisked from Aaron’s home and out to dinner before Spencer could think to say _no_. He couldn’t do this, not tonight. In circles around his room he paced, half-dressed and already slipping sideways into a pool of panic that would undo him tonight in front of their entire social group. What had happened in there? What had John said to Aaron? Had they talked about him? About his influence on Aaron?

He could imagine it in terrifying clarity. _Co-dependant_ , John would say with a shake of his head. _Destructive, dangerous. Your recovery needs to be centred around yourself, Aaron, not around Spencer. You need to consider…_

_You need to consider…_

Spencer shuddered, doing another quick turn and letting his gaze fall almost lazily onto the window sill. He needed to calm down. He needed to get out of his head. The head that was filled with Aaron drowning because Spencer was dragging him under: because he’d planned to end this a month ago and he was still here, still hurting those around him, there was always to reason to keep on keeping on.

Aaron’s birthday, he couldn’t miss that.

Therapy—as frightened as he was by the outcome of it, he was more frightened of Aaron not going. He needed it, just as much as Spencer needed Aaron. Except not as dangerously addicted.

Spencer shuddered again; an addict needing his fix, something more than what the coke in his window sill could offer. It had been two weeks since they’d last slept together and he ached to remember it.

Christmas. It was four days until Christmas. He couldn’t do it before Christmas.

His cell beeped by the side of his bed where it was charging. Probably Aaron, wondering where they were. Not ready yet; Spencer was panicking and Ethan was singing loudly in the shower, audible through the paper-thin walls.

He couldn’t do it before Christmas, no. He’d wait until after. But his mom’s birthday was in January… and Ethan’s…

All the stupid reasons to keep going. He clung to them because he wasn’t sold on dying yet. Not completely.

His cell beeped again. Should he be sober tonight? Could he be? A look at his shaking hands answered that, and the sweat dripping down his back despite his light shirt and the winter air impregnating the room. He’d check his cell. He’d reply sober. He’d take a little. He could hide a little. Even from Ethan.

He checked his cell; it took a heartbeat to realize that he wished he’d shot up first.

_> Unknown number: Can we talk?_

And he knew who it was. He knew, because this wasn’t the first message he’d gotten. Not at all. There were a row of them, the same number, the same desperation, ever since the night he’d come to their door.

_> Unknown number: Please Spencer._

_> Unknown number: Carly left me. _

He tried to swallow and found he couldn’t. Instead, he kneeled by his cell and scrolled back through the chaotic jumble of messages, nipping at the nail on his thumb of the hand not holding the cell, gnawing at it until he tasted copper on his tongue.

_> Unknown number: I’m at the Jefferson. I know you’re reading these. I know you don’t really believe what you said I did to you._

The coke was a rush he was fucking thankful for, replacing the leaden fatigue and clawing terror with something real and fresh. Energy instead of exhaustion and _something_ instead of feeling nothing at all. He waited for it to kick and then sighed with relief, dressing in long-sleeves and a heavy coat. Vegas boy, no one would question him. He could do this. He could. A night with Aaron. Not what he’d planned, not really, or maybe… an opportunity.

On the bed, his cell trilled, cutting the stimulant-driven enthusiasm with a rush of frenzied fear.

But he checked it still.

_> Unknown number: Aaron came to see me. He’s worried about you._

“Fuck,” Spencer said numbly.

Too far. This had gone too far. Aaron was in too deep, getting too close.

It had to end tonight.

He had to end tonight.

 

* * *

 

They went to dinner. He stayed high because otherwise he wouldn’t have the courage for what he was going to do. He had to hurt Aaron tonight. Hurt him enough that he didn’t come looking. Hurt him enough to blunt the pain of what was coming, like cauterising the wound… short-term pain for long-term salvage.

And then, on that cold, dark, festively fucked street with the sidewalk under their shoes icing over and the merry sound of _Jingle Bells_ chiming from a nearby restaurant, he ended them.

He ended Rhosgobel. “Aaron, it’s not some magical fairy-tale place,” he lied. “It’s a bunch of mouldering wooden planks on the edge of a disused quarry. What I am now has no impact on the fact that it’s nothing special.”

Strike one.

Aaron stared at him, his eyes wide and broken-glass-shattered with shock and pain. Spencer saw that expression and felt something inside him twist and tear through, a rush of burning pain like nothing he’d felt recently slamming into his chest and trying to stop his cruel heart.

Aaron was shaking. He was cold. He’d left his jacket behind.

Stoned and scared and shaking, Spencer held his coat out to him. Felt anger. Felt fear. Felt grief. Felt sick. Aaron wouldn’t take it. “Take it,” Spencer snarled, feeling that something snap some more, wild and panicked and rearing up inside him in a burning rush of something furious, some dangerous violence he’d only ever touched on once before, the night he’d lost his mind and broken Ethan’s nose. “Or go away, back inside. Leave me alone!”

“No,” Aaron said mulishly, the mouth Spencer loved set in a stubborn line, his dark hair whipped up by the wind. He shivered still. His arms were covered in goosebumps, the skin turning almost bluish-white. “What are you looking for?” And he was asking it desperately, like he’d tear the world in two if that meant he could give Spencer what he needed.

The irony being that the only thing Spencer needed was Aaron safe and away from his destructive capabilities.

Something cold touched his face. And again. Cold and wet, despite him knowing he wasn’t crying.

He was far, far too angry to cry.

“The end,” he said monotonously. Here it was: “Now, leave.”

The cold touched again. Aaron’s dark hair was dusting with white. Nearby, a child cried out with excitement. Spencer hated her small voice for how alive it was.

Snow fell around them, like the white-tipped fallout of the grenade Spencer had just ignited between them.

“I’m not giving you that,” Aaron tried, stepping forward. Visibly shaking now, his eyes turning red, his face twisting with fear and panic. He could finally see what this was. He finally _knew_.

“Yes, you will,” Spencer said. His pocket buzzed. He stepped towards Aaron. His brain was buzzing; his anger spiked. What wouldn’t Aaron forgive him for? What could he never see past? _You’re just like him_ , the text message so long ago had screamed. Just as cruel. Here he was, proving that. And so, Spencer did the one thing he knew Aaron would never forgive him for.

He showed himself for who he truly was. He’d been right, all those years ago. There was none of Aaron’s father in the frightened man standing in front of him.

But Spencer… Spencer was _just_ like him.

His lips touched Aaron’s ear, his head dipping forward. It would be a stiff, frozen hug, if the two of them weren’t rigid with tension, if Aaron’s chest wasn’t heaving against Spencer’s with the panic he was barely holding back, if the coat wasn’t trapped between them. And he whispered: “Because you’re not your mom… and I’m a grenade. Unpredictable and dangerous, and you won’t live like that.”

Aaron didn’t say a word, his blank eyes staring at a point over Spencer’s shoulder.

So, Spencer turned. He dropped the coat on Aaron’s feet.

He walked away.

It was over.

But Aaron grabbed him and the anger was terrifying. In his pocket, his cell was heavy with all the texts he’d been ignoring for weeks— _come see me, we can talk, I can come to you, you can’t ignore me forever_ —and Aaron grabbed him and Spencer knew what he had to do. It was a conscious decision.

Afterwards, he’d examine his split knuckles and think that the coke hadn’t really caused it. He wasn’t that high in the moment. He was scared and he was angry and he was bordering on depressively manic, but he was clear-minded. And when he hit Aaron, he did so purposefully.

He did so purposefully and, in the moment, that shocked him. He stared at his hand. His familiar, unfamiliar hand, already stinging hot, red lines dripping along his fingers to spool down his arm and soak into his sweater. And Aaron on the floor. Aaron staring. Aaron bleeding.

Spencer blinked and for a moment remembered a lake and a boy covered in a patchwork of bruises.

Nausea surged.

He was going to be sick.

“Oi!” Simon shouted, surging towards them with his own usually kind face a furious grimace. “Get off!”

Spencer left. He turned and he didn’t run, just walked, away.

Aaron didn’t get up.

Spencer didn’t stop.

He remembered now.


	47. Pandemonium, One

He remembered now. He knew it was coming for him, the destructive recall, the sick recollection of why he was the way he was. He knew who’d made him this way.

And he refused to be like this anymore.

He drove home with a calm sense of moving forward. It was clear now what he had to do.

The letters he needed for the next step were no longer corporal things in his life. One was buried in a box in New Orleans. The other, somewhere only Aaron knew. Spencer knew he’d have to delve into the dangerous memories that were lurking deep within his mind, waiting to burn him with all they contained. But that was okay. He was ready to face them.

He remembered now.

For the first time, he locked himself in his ice-cold bedroom with the winter night pushing through the cracked window, and deliberately went looking for those memories. He found a vein and sat with his back to the door, a lecture pad on his knees, pen at the ready, and watched a drop of blood work its way down the crook of his elbow to drip onto the grey-washed carpet. Blood that was redder than the brownish mess on his split knuckle. Waiting for the memory. Waiting for the letters.

His phone hummed. _Aaron: I’m not mad. Spence, please. I just need to get my mouth looked at and I’m coming over, okay?_

He didn’t reply because he was closing his eyes and feeling the pen skip and skate across the pad below his hand, remembering _(quickly glancing around the lecture room to make sure no one could see the flush working its way across his cheeks. No one was looking, no one was ever looking, and he looked back down to the letter he’d finally opened and spread out to read across his notes. Something hot and bubbly and silly working its way up his chest and into his throat as he fought the urge to leap up and laugh and shout **he loves me!**_

> _Spencer,_
> 
> _I dont know how to write this but it s my birthday and ive might have gotten a bit stupid or maybe im always stupid. I know im stupid because I never said this before because I know you and I know you fereak out when things get feely but im stupid crazy in love with you and I think I always have been I think of Rhosgobel and you and our fort and I wish we were back there. Remember when we fell asleep in the storm and woke up in each others arms? I wish we could do that agaagin and this time Id kiss you in the storm and more and I dream of it and wish we could do it again_
> 
> _Im not gonna send this because Im stupid drunk and stupid and im going to be thinking about you tonight when im in bed alone and I know you think about me too and you have no idea how crazy that makes me_
> 
> _Stupid in love with you, Aaron_

_He didn’t hear a single word of the lecture Ross was giving, too busy reading the letter again and again and again and feeling overwhelmed every time, but in the best kind of way. He’d memorised it on the first read-through but read it another eight times anyway, only realizing the lecture was finishing as people around him began to pack their bags. He packed his own in a hurry, hands shaking and face still turned down to avoid people seeing his stupid grin or bright red cheeks, dropping his pens at first and then his book, the letter skidding away._

_A hand scooped and picked it up before he could. Spencer rocketed up with a squeak and a lurch towards it, knowing he looked stupid right now and only really caring that he got it back before his giddy heart was bared._

_“Dropped something, Spence,” Ross said in the soft kind of secret voice he only really used when no one else was around. “Are you okay?”_

_Spencer relaxed. The lecture room was empty and he was **buzzing**. He wanted to tell someone— **needed** to tell someone—because this was huge, monumental, unprecedented—someone loved him! Not just **someone** , but **Aaron**. Amazing, fantastic, handsome Aaron, who was going to be a tremendous lawyer and help people and said that was because of Spencer! And he could tell Ross, of course, because) _ he remembered now.

He remembered telling him. He remembered Connors reading the letter. Dry-mouthed with an aching jaw from the tic bad coke gave him, he refocused his wavering gaze on the wild strikes of his pen on the page under his hand. The pages. Others scattered around him. The letter Aaron had written to him, drunk and giddy and stupidly in love with no idea of the outcome of that love; Aaron’s letter in Spencer’s stupid, stoned handwriting. And others. Other letters he’d written around it, lazy and cautious and still half-undecided.

One to his mom, simply labelled _I’m sorry._

One to Clary. It flipped from furious to miserable. _Why can’t you GET BETTER. Why are you like YOU stop being like you IT WILL KILL YOU._ Every sharp line was a needle, the final needle: “You’ll OD one day,” Spencer mumbled, scribbling over the wobbly _Clary_ he’d written at the top and trying to replace it with her full-name before sleepily realizing he didn’t know it.

His cell hummed.

_> Aaron: Please don’t do anything stupid. Answer your cell, love, please._

Spencer turned it off. He had to because _(Ross was angry._

_“In here,” he said shortly, and slammed the office door behind Spencer as he scuttled in. Spencer was shaking, terrified. Why was he so angry? He’d never spoken to Spencer like this before, never looked so hurt or confused or—_

_“I’m sorry,” Spencer stammered, backing up against the desk and knocking a stack of term papers to the ground. “Sh—I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to. What’s wrong?”_

_“You,” breathed Ross, sinking into his chair and covering his eyes as Spencer desperately tried to pick the papers up, hands trembling too hard to grab the pages. In Ross’s hand, Aaron’s letter was scrunched, torn. Spencer kept looking at it, and looking at Ross’s paling face. What was going on?_

_“Me?” Spencer squeaked, kneeling on the floor and unsure if he should get up or if the fear thudding into his chest and drawing all the air from his lungs would let him do so. “C-can I have my—”_

_“This?” The letter waved in the air, tore a little more. Ross stood, his face not angry anymore, but hurt. Pained. Spencer stared. Was he… was he **crying**? “Spencer, how could you? How could you not only risk **yourself** , but Aaron! Don’t you realize what you’ve done?”_

_Spencer blinked. “Nothing,” he managed tightly. “I haven’t done… anything. He—he **loves** me, there’s nothing wrong with that—we’re in—”_

_“Danger,” Ross said, his voice hoarse. “You don’t realize, do you, how much danger this puts you in? How much danger you’re putting Aaron in—I can’t protect you from this. God, Spence, love, all I want to do is to protect you. People will hurt you if they think you’re like that. Surely Aaron warned you?”_

_Silence. Spencer opened his mouth to deny that, to say Ross had it all wrong, but he paused. Remembering the first letter Aaron had sent him after their visit— ‘Sean’s worried’, ‘people will be cruel’, ‘be really careful,’ and… and ‘promise you’ll be safe’. He wasn’t stupid. He knew the risks of violence based on his sexuality, the hate he could incur. But he could… they could hide it?_

_Did they want to hide it? How long would they have to hide it?_

_He faltered._

_“Aaron wants to be a lawyer,” Ross said gently, reaching down and helping Spencer up, guiding him to the chair he’d vacated. “He’ll never do that if people know he’s in love with a man.”_

_“We can…” What could they do?_

_“He’ll resent you for it.”_

_Spencer shook his head. No! Aaron would never resent anyone for anything, especially not for being who they were._

_“And his father… he’ll hurt him. If he finds out, he’ll hurt him. He knows where Aaron is, he’ll find him. Can Sean keep him safe? **Would** Sean keep him safe—his gay brother?”_

_Everything Spencer had ever told Ross about Aaron, turned around. Spencer tucked his knees closer to the chair and stared at them, his eyes burning. Gone from giddy and excited about love to twisted and scared. If even one of those things happened, and if it was Spencer’s fault…_

_“I don’t want to hurt him,” Spencer whispered, his face heating up._

_“I know. Listen to me—I know you’d never hurt him, Spencer, or disappoint me like that. You’d never disappoint me, would you? Not when I’ve done so much for you…”_

_Spencer shook his head._

_“Good.” A hand touched Spencer’s chin, lifted his face. Ross’s expression was raw and open and Spencer swallowed hard, the burning pooling down his cheeks in a damp trail of tears. “Don’t cry. I’m going to help you, of course I am. But you have to talk to me. Okay?”_

_Voice stolen by his frozen throat, Spencer could do nothing but nod, slumping forward and crying as Ross hugged him close._

_He wasn’t alone. He wasn’t. Ross would help them both. They could fix this._

_They could **fix** this._

_“Write exactly what I tell you)_ to,” Spencer mumbled, tearing that page in half and ripping it into pieces, the ink smudged and pooling where something had splashed onto the page. It revealed the letters underneath, crammed together on the one page in a chaotic jumble of his unconscious conscience.

_Fuck you Elle fuck you you should have let htem kill me, at least this wouldn’t hurt so much then. You should have let me drown_

_Ethan—why didn’t you leave. You were always going to fail always always and im always going to drag you back because im selfish and cruel and mean and I hurt everyone and I began with aaron—he should have warned you. Why are you so WEAK just walk AWAY. YOU’RE WORTH MORE._

_~~I NEVER WANTED IT ROSS. You’ve~~ _ _made me into a coward too WEAK to tell you that but I refuse to be the man you’ve made of me anymore LIAR. LIAR. LIAR. LIAR._

One to Aaron. He stared at it. He’d written this letter before.

 

> _(Aaron,_
> 
> _I don’t know. I want to be more, but I don’t think we should be. It would be wrong. I was incorrect before. We shouldn’t do that, it could get you into trouble and I don’t ever want to be a reason why you get into trouble. You want to study law after school and you’ll never get into that career with a boyfriend, and what about your family? We should just stay friends. We’ll always be friends, right, and maybe that’s enough?? It would be selfish of me to entice you into something more when you might not even be sure of who you are yet or what you want. We’re so young, why pigeonhole ourselves now?_
> 
> _I understand if this makes you mad, but I feel like it needs to be said. I’m sorry if I led you on or confused you. Still friends?_
> 
> _Happy birthday. 16 huh. Did you know 16 is the smallest number with exactly five divisors? There are also sixteen pawns in a chess set, and each player begins with exactly sixteen pieces!_
> 
> _Regards, S. W. Reid_
> 
> _12/05/1997_

_“Good boy, Spence,” Ross murmured, as Spencer laid the pen down, cold and hot all at once._

_Spencer stared at it, nausea fighting with bile building. He was going to be sick. He felt like he was **betraying** Aaron. “This will hurt him,” he said with a firmness he didn’t feel, shoving it away. “I don’t want to send this. Why can’t we just…”_

_He looked up and Ross was staring at him, the same cold anger brimming that he’d shown when he’d first read Aaron’s letter. Spencer cringed away from that anger, terrified suddenly that he was ruining this, breaking this one chance at having a proper family by his refusal to do what Ross thought would keep him safe._

_“You had sex with him, didn’t you?” Ross asked sharply._

_Spencer blinked. “What?”_

_“Did you have sex with him?”_

_Fear turned to confusion turned to shame turned to confusion again as Ross towered over him, taller and broader than Spencer had noticed, the hand on his shoulder not kind anymore, but restrictive._

_“No—no! I didn’t, what, why? Why?”_

_The hand pinched tighter. Spencer glanced to the door. It wasn’t so far. But he wasn’t breathing properly, too scared to move suddenly, bizarrely—Ross wouldn’t hurt him._

_Would he?_

_“Did you do **anything**?”_

_Spencer was silent, shaken. **No,** he tried to whisper, but couldn’t. This was inappropriate. Why was he asking him this?_

_The door wasn’t so far away._

_“You did,” hissed Ross, and Spencer switched his attention back to him, his terror turning cold. The hand bit down, snapped away, and Ross recoiled with an expression of disgust._

_Spencer had never felt quite as small as he did in that moment._

_He shook his head desperately. “I didn’t,” he choked out. “We didn’t. Please stop, I don’t want to talk about this. Please stop. Ross, please…”_

_“Did you want to?”_

_“Please…”_

_“Spencer?)_ Spencer?”

Ethan. Spencer turned his head and listened to the tread of footsteps outside his bedroom door. Two gaits. Ethan and Elle. He was sorry for what they were going to find when they stopped respecting his privacy and opened that door. But that would be hours yet. It always took Ethan a while to decide to be invasive.

That wouldn’t stop him shouting through the door.

“You gotta talk to me. What the fuck did you do to Aaron’s face, man?”

Spencer didn’t answer. Instead, he tore off the scribbled off pages and began again.

One more letter.


	48. Epistolary, Alcyone

Dear Aaron,

Someone once asked me how I would start my story if I was to tell them about my life. At the time, I was too stoned to answer.

If he was to ask me now, I would tell him that I wouldn’t bother starting it at all.

Mine isn’t a story worth telling.

You told me once that you’re just like your mother. Unable to walk away even as your father beat her down until she was just a shadow of herself. I’ve never met your mother, but I imagine she was strong once. I imagine that you’re right, that you are like her. Just as strong and just as brave and just as irrevocably trapped by the burden of loving the wrong person too much. I believe that you’re like your mother; I don’t believe that that makes you weak.

Your mother would have been strong, if your father had been kind enough to let her go.

I’m telling myself that this is a kindness. I’m telling myself that I’m removing myself from you like a surgeon would a cancerous growth, allowing you back the vitality you once possessed before I began propagating within your very being. I’m writing this letter to convince both you and I that what I’m doing is right, that what I’m doing is what your father should have done for you. Because there’s one thing I’m absolutely sure of: the singular gift your father has ever given you that is worth anything is the gift of his death.

I’m not going to tell you my story; you already know it.

I’m not going to say goodbye; you’re too strong to understand that I’ve always been weak.

I’m not even going to give you this letter; it will add value where there is none. A single malignant cell left behind to stall the healing you’ll undergo without me.

You’ll never understand that this is a gift.

I wouldn’t be so cruel as to start my story once more, but I will end it. Here it is. The conclusion, long awaited, of a tale I wish no one had ever told.

You’ll notice my handwriting has become erratic. I’m frightened. I’m weak, always, scared of the dark right until the end. I don’t believe in the afterlife, but I still fear becoming nothing. My fingers tremble on the pen; the window is open. It’s snowing early. Unusual for DC this time of year. I’m stalling. I hope Ethan forgets this night. Please look after him.

I am surrounded by our letters. Some are even still in one piece.

This is how my story ends. I’ve opened the window to let the snow in. I’ve always hated the cold but I think, tonight, I welcome it. I’m a coward so it will be painless. I’m weak, so I’m stalling.

Perhaps I’ll visit Rhosgobel one last time before I make that step.

Perhaps I’ll remember how we began. I was wrong back then. We’ve always been friends.

I’m sorry.


	49. Outcome

_“You don’t know me. We’re not **friends** ,” Spencer said worriedly, shoving his glasses up his nose and twitching as he felt his dirty fingers leave something sticky behind. “I don’t even live here… I’m just here for the summer.”_

_The boy just looked at him and said: “We could be.”_

But when Spencer began to answer, Rhosgobel faded.

“Tell me about Aaron,” Ross was asking. Spencer wasn’t drunk; he’d only had one. The glass in his hand was warm under his palm and the amber liquid within refracted the light prettily.

“I wouldn’t even know where to begin,” he admitted, biting at his lip and feeling his eyes burn. Aaron, who hated him now. Aaron, who’d never forgive him. “I hurt him.”

His glass was empty. Ross took it, left the room to fill it. Spencer took the time to swipe his sleeve across his face, but the material came away dry. The couch dipped as Ross returned and sat next to him, leaning back with a sigh after handing Spencer his refilled glass. Spencer took it. There was no point saying no.

Alice and Carly were away. Aaron hated him.

The date on the calendar on the kitchen wall read _March 2 nd, 1998_.

“Why do you care so much?” Ross asked. His voice was bitter. “I hate how small he makes you feel.”

“He’s never made me feel small,” Spencer murmured, coughing as he swallowed too much scotch to hide his anxiety, choking on the bitter aftertaste. “Not once. Stop _saying_ that…”

_“So you keep saying,” the boy said, shrugging, picking up the wood Spencer had abandoned and turning back with a lopsided grin that Spencer struggled to restrain from returning. “You gonna finally tell me what you’re making?”_

_“Rhosgobel.”_

He felt sick. Too drunk, too small. The couch was distant under him, his body struggling to stay awake.

_I should go_ , someone distantly murmured. _I want to go. Please let me go._

But Ross was looking away, ignoring him. “I need to apologise,” he was saying, “for frightening you that night, when I kissed you. And the night with the letter. That was never my intention.”

Something was wrong. Spencer tried to tip his glass up to the light so he could see how much he’d drunk, instead noting the way the light was refracting _wrong_.

_Please let me go._

“I just get so jealous, Spencer. You keep giving him everything, despite how much I’ve done for you. Despite _us_?”

Spencer managed, “Us?” instead of _I want to go home_.

The glass was on the floor.

He watched the stain spread.

“Don’t you understand how much I love you?”

_“Need a hand?” Aaron asked with the same smile, a little shyer this time. Like he wasn’t sure of his welcome._

_“No,” Spencer said automatically, and then stopped. Would… would it be so bad? “Well… maybe. I know what I want it to do, it’s just…”_

_And Aaron slipped out of the tree and said: “It’s okay to ask for help if you’re not strong enough.”_

“You drugged it,” Spencer said, watching the stain spread in the plush carpet. He was falling. He’d fallen. Too tired to move, flopping on the couch like a dead thing, watching the edges seep wider and wider and wider and wider and drag him with them. The words didn’t work; they were nothing but a quiet exhale.

He was voiceless.

There was a hand on his leg, a heavy weight. Stroking.

Spencer closed his eyes. “Help me,” he whispered. He needed help.

He trusted Ross.

He trusted.

_There was a beetle on his shoulder, its wings whirring. Spencer looked past it to Aaron’s wide eyes. “Banded longhorn beetle,” he identified quickly, flushing when Aaron grinned._

There was a book on beetles on the bedside cupboard. Spencer stared at it because he couldn’t look elsewhere; his body wouldn’t respond when he coaxed it.

He was in a bed. How had this happened?

When had this happened?

There was a book of beetles on the bedside cupboard.

Spencer watched the beetle march because he couldn’t look anywhere else.

_He was giddy with the idea. “We could write letters!”_

_Aaron looked at him and there was a look so alien on his face that Spencer was winded. He **wanted** this. “I’d love that,” he breathed, and Spencer knew he meant it._

Spencer was frozen, disconnected from his body, helpless to shift away from the galloping of his own heart that was pinning him down along with a heavy, warm weight.

“I love you, Spencer, you have to understand. This is for _us_. Look at me, baby. No, no, don’t close your eyes… you do want this, don’t you? I haven’t misunderstood? If you tell me, I’ll stop.  I promise. I won’t scare you anymore. But I know you want this—you’re so loving, so sweet…”

_It was a stupid impulse. An amazing impulse._

_The first time he kissed Aaron, he was drunk and stupid and amazing and it was **everything**._

_They kissed hungrily, frantically, and it was mostly Spencer. Too tangled up in his own emotions, his own tangled feelings, he was overwrought and overexcited and, when they broke apart, Aaron just looked flushed and stunned._

_He panicked: “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have done that. That was impulsive and rude and this will ruin—”_

_“Shut up, stop thinking,” Aaron said, suddenly, his grin turning just as stupid and amazing as Spencer had felt. “That was… nice.” He blinked, frowned, looked adorably puzzled for a second. “I mean, that was… good.”_

_They spent the night in each other’s arms and Spencer absolutely remembered everything._

Choking.

He’d thrown up. Numb, everywhere, but for the burn in his throat and the gasping, clutching feeling as his body struggled to breathe. Red spots danced on the black, the sheets under him wet; he was drowning in it.

There was a voice humming behind him. A nothing voice. It hurt.

_Would you let me fuck you?_

_It’s just sex._

_I just want you._

_We’re drunk._

_We’re lonely._

_I’m just so fucking lonely, Spence, baby…_

He fell into the choking drowning world beneath him and absolutely remembered nothing.

_“Why are we doing this?” Spencer asked suddenly one night, laying on his back under the covers with Aaron’s head on his chest._

_“Because it feels right,” Aaron said after a pause, rolling to look at him. They were so close. Spencer huddled closer, nervous suddenly in a way he hadn’t been when this had happened. “Don’t overthink it.”_

_But something was wrong._

_The memory was wrong._

_He was drowning._

_“Help me,” he begged, fucking **begged.** “Aaron, please, help. I need help._

_“You mean fucking everything to me, okay?” Aaron snapped, deaf to Spencer’s pleas. “And there is **nothing**  wrong with this. I’m not pushing you into anything—you’d tell me if I was. You’re not pushing me. We’re not taking it too far, we’re not losing our heads, we’re just…”_

_“Lonely,” Spencer said, because that was what he’d said that night. That was the script._

No one could help him.

“I’m so lonely,” Ross whispered against Spencer’s neck, his face damp and sticky against Spencer’s overheated skin.

_“Lonely,” Aaron agreed, and hugged him tight until the night was over._

…

..

.

..

…

He remembered it all.

He remembered waking in the morning with an aching head and a stranger’s body. Distant within his own head, staring down blankly at the tangled comforted tucked carefully over him. Someone had cleaned him during the night, he supposed, since he remembered vomiting but his throat was clean. Someone hadn’t done a very good job. His chest was still flaky and his legs stuck together as he shifted warily and only gasped a little at the whirl of dizzy/hurt/sick.

Ross slept by his side.

Spencer dressed without knowing what he was doing and left.

He remembered waking again curled on the grass by the lake. A duck watched him curiously. It was warm and the grass was dry.

Everything hurt.

He stared at a bruise on his wrist and contemplated rolling into the lake and cleaning the vomit from his skin.

Maybe he wouldn’t float.

He remembered waking again with his cell phone in his hand and tears dripping onto the blurry screen. Breath rattling and chest heaving; he was naked and jumbled in a tangle of wet, steaming, bruised limbs on the floor of his dorm-room with a towel under his knees and his skin red-raw from scrubbing.

He remembered the water running red.

“Mom, answer the phone,” he begged, and began to cry. “Please answer.”

But she didn’t and he threw the phone, screaming when it shattered against the walls that were swallowing him.

He remembered walking to the medical bay. He remembered standing in the doorway watching a girl take two Tylenol and smile as she walked out past him.

He remembered someone that sounded like him but surely wasn’t saying, _I’m still bleeding. Please help._

What came after, he hardly knew.

It wasn’t a story worth telling.

Not to him, anyway.

But he remembered anyway, despite not wanting to.

Connors coming for him. _How could you say I hurt you like that, Spencer?_

Connors calling his mom for him. _He’s fine, Mrs. Reid. He was sick that night. Don’t worry—my wife and I are going to take care of him._

Connors telling him exactly what to say.

And Spencer had never learned how to stop trusting someone he loved, so he said it.

_Is it true that you’ve been inappropriately propositioning Dr. Connors?_

Yes.

_Is it true that you would visit his home for personal reasons, despite him asking you to cease doing so?_

Yes.

_Is it true that you believe that you were engaged in some kind of relationship with Dr. Connors, despite him trying to discourage that belief?_

Yes.

_Will you withdraw your allegation of sexual misconduct in light of this statement, Dr. Reid?_

Yes.

_This is very serious, Spencer. What you’ve done here today is a crime. You could have ruined a good man’s life with this story, this lie._

_Did Dr. Ross Connors, on the morning of March 3 rd, 1998, engage in any kind of sexual act with you, Dr. Reid?_

No.

I lied.

I’m sorry.

“I’m not mad at you,” he remembered Ross saying to him. He was sitting on the couch. He looked down. It was a week and a half after that night. The stain was gone. “You’re just confused, Spence. Maybe… maybe like your mom.”

The stain was gone.

“It’s okay. It’s okay, love. I know you won’t make that mistake again. Let me show you. Will you let me show you?”

Spencer did nothing.

The stain was gone.

He sat there, and he did nothing. And then he went home and he showered until he was sure there was no evidence left. Just like the stain.

Gone.

A week later, he was sent away.

And, for the longest time, he refused to remember.

_If he wanted to be brothers, why did he leave?” Aaron was asking, his voice so bitter that Spencer burned with it._

_“Oh, Aaron,” Spencer whispered, so softly that Aaron couldn’t hear him over the sound of the storm raging outside. He charged on anyway, louder and more determined: “Well, that’s not totally fair. Sometimes… sometimes people have to leave the people they love for their own good.”_

He opened his eyes groggily, wiped a flake of snow from the letter against his knees. It melted at his touch and smeared the word _sorry_.

He remembered being fourteen and so sure that what he was saying was true.

_“Maybe. And maybe like… me. Leaving you. I don’t want to, but I can’t not. It’s a reasonable reaction to an unreasonable situation. And leaving doesn’t mean forever.”_

But he wasn’t fourteen anymore. He was twenty years old, preparing to die, and he knew he’d been wrong.

Leaving absolutely meant forever.

He reached for the needle, doubting anyone would stop him.

As it turned out, that was wrong.


	50. Remission

**One. ‘We accept the fact that our efforts to stop our addiction have failed’**

He cried during the intake interview. He had a panic attack when they strip searched him to ensure he wasn’t bringing anything in with him.

He cried again during his assessment, so hopelessly tangled up in the raw pain of walking away from Aaron without looking back that he couldn’t think to answer the questions they asked him. It didn’t seem to surprise them. They simply gave him a form with all the questions laid out in neat little checkboxes and let him answer them at his own pace, shut in a room with no windows and a fake pot plant adding faux cheer to the butter yellow walls.

He paused on the section labelled: **any further comments**. Tapped his pen over-top of it.

Wrote _I can’t do this alone anymore_ and firmly ticked the box under _Suicidal Tendencies._

It was two weeks after he’d decided to die on his bedroom floor; two weeks since Aaron had burst in and threatened to shoot up to prove a point. And he had, proven a point that was.

If Aaron was willing to risk so much to save him, then clearly there was something worth saving.

Somehow.

They finished his detox with a round of Librium, mostly to calm him down more so than controlling anything else. He was thankful. There was no part of him that was ready to face anything yet: not the room he shared with two others, not the strict list of rules they’d printed out and given to him, not the oncoming prospect of endless therapy and group sessions and constant evaluation and re-evaluation of his very self. He knew he needed help, knew his own efforts—as sparse as they’d been—to recover had failed. He just wasn’t sold on that the help could be found in this cramped facility full of young addicts diverted by the justice system and older addicts jaded by their lives, all of whom referred to it as ‘Junky Summer Camp’.

“Do you play?” asked his roommate, offering a battered chess-set, but Spencer ignored him and, eventually, the man wandered away.

He took the Librium and he mostly slept, and that’s how he passed the first week.

 

**Two. ‘We believe that we must turn elsewhere for help’**

> _Dear Aaron_
> 
> _I’m not going to send this. I think the end of our story should be final… at least, I sometimes think that. Sometimes, I’m weaker and wish we could be what we were again._
> 
> _You wouldn’t like it here. Sometimes I like it here. Sometimes I plan my escape. Sometimes I’m content. It’s only the second week of twelve, but I feel like I’ve gone through every conceivable emotion. Perhaps that’s how it works, rehabilitation. They bring us in here and teach us how to feel again. Restart the mind and body. I don’t know. I dislike the prevalence of religious imagery. B. F. Skinner wrote his own twelve steps to addiction recovery based on a behaviourist perspective, secularised from spirituality or the need to divulge my recovery to a higher power. I understand it helps some people. It does not help me. I need the knowledge that my recovery is based upon my strength in myself._
> 
> _See? This is why I can’t send this letter. This place encourages dangerous levels of introspection. I’ve already hurt you enough with my circular thought patterns and self-obsession._
> 
> _I miss everyone._
> 
> _I feel too weak to succeed._
> 
> _Sometimes, I’m angry._
> 
> _I didn’t realize how little I was feeling until now, when I feel too much._
> 
> _I miss you most of all._

> _Dear Ethan,_
> 
> _We’re allowed phone calls once a week but I figured you’d get a kick out of me writing to you like this. It gives you ammunition to tease me about my quaint ways._
> 
> _I have very little to tell you. Nothing that would be interesting to speak of has happened. Every morning I have a group session with my primary therapist overseeing. I speak very little. Many of them are young. Some share my story. I feel very ordinary. My roommates are reclusive. One seems kind. He has a truly impressive proliferation of board games that he keeps encouraging me to play with him in our spare time. I prefer to sleep. I’m tired, all the time._
> 
> _My mental health assessment will be complete this week. I know they’re considering medication. I feel uncomfortable writing this, as though I’m exposing some flaw to your discernment, but a prevailing theme here is that we must be willing to reach out to those around us. I’m unwilling to do that to the strangers I find surrounding me, but you’re not and have never been a stranger._
> 
> _I hope all is well. Say hello to Elle and your keyboard for me. How is the job search going?_
> 
> _Best regards, Spencer Reid._
> 
> _01/23/2003_

> _Spence._
> 
> _You’re such a weirdo. Snail mail, really? And your handwriting is like a serial killer’s. QUAINT doesn’t describe you—I think I could body-swap you with some 15 th century thespian and not notice the difference._
> 
> _Anything you want to tell me is interesting, man. Talk to your group. There’s nothing ordinary about you. Play that dude’s board games. You made friends with me and I’m a grumpy hermit who hates everyone—you can make friends with Mr. Monopoly. Unless he actually has Monopoly. Don’t play Monopoly with him. You cheat._
> 
> _You’re tired because you’re recovering. You’re withdrawn for the same reason. Don’t sink into believing that’s all you are. Take the medication. Let me know what they say. Trust that they can help you._
> 
> _I cleaned your room up. I know what was in there, I know what you were planning. You NEED to get better. Don’t do that to me, Spence. Please._
> 
> _We all miss you, including my keyboard. Elle says she’s jealous she doesn’t get a letter –_ what, no I’m not, fuck off Ethan you ass. Spencer, I don’t need a letter – _and that she’ll cry EVERY night until you write her one._
> 
> _Job search is going places. Not great places, but places. I think it wants me to take it to the beach this week. We’re going steady now. I hope its parents don’t find out…_
> 
> _Get better. And learn to use a fucking phone, Galileo._
> 
> _E._
> 
> _p.s. :3_ _ß_ _chinball emoticon for you_
> 
> _01/30/2003_

 

**Three. ‘We turn to our fellows, particularly those who have struggled with the same problem’**

“You don’t seem very sold on this whole thing,” said Kendall one day, three weeks in. They were lying in their beds, three beds in a neat little row, minutes after lights out. Spencer frowned. The man didn’t seem to take his reticence as reason to give him space, instead, it just seemed to inspire him to push further. “You always get real shitty when God comes up.”

“I do not get ‘shitty’,” Spencer said stiffly. He didn’t, not really. It just wasn’t a choice for _him_. “I abstain from participating. I’m not a believer. I _am_ tired though…”

His not-so-subtle hint was ignored.

“I think that’s the wrong way to look at it.” Bedding rustled as the man rolled to face him, face oddly shaped in the gloom, broken by the lines of his beard against his dark skin. “I am a believer, but that doesn’t change shit. Even if you’re not, you still gotta place faith in _something_. Otherwise you’re gonna keep falling into the melancholy of thinking you’ve got fuck all to do it for.”

“I have faith.” Spencer gave him, rolling to face the man and frowning at him, despite knowing he couldn’t see his expression. “I have faith in myself, not in the anachronistic need to hope that some higher power will remove my character defects without my contribution. Addiction is a _disease_ , not a lack of faith.”

“See? That’s the wrong way of looking at it. Just ‘cos I place faith in asking for God’s help, doesn’t mean it ain’t my own blood and sweat I’m pouring into getting better. You’re not great at asking for help, are you?”

Here was the greatest flaw with group therapy; it gave people the most annoying insights into him. Spencer huddled down into the bed, remaining silent.

“There are alternative for non-believers, you know. You don’t have to not participate—just adapt it to suit yourself.”

“I _know_ ,” Spencer snapped, feeling guilty a moment later as Steven across the room coughed in a way that suggested he was disapproving of Spencer’s tone. “I mean, I know. I just don’t like… talking. It’s not the religious aspects that frustrate me, or the relative dearth of scientific evidence regarding the efficacy of programs like—”

“This is my third spin through here,” Steve said suddenly cutting Spencer off. “I still hate talking. Didn’t say a word the first few times. Think maybe that only hindered my recovery. I’ll probably be back here again, because I still ain’t sold on talking to a bunch of rotating faces in a room filled with too many broken people.”

“Why don’t you talk?” Kendall asked.

“Don’t have shit to say. What do they want out of me? ‘It’s my fault I’m here, I accept that’. Or, ‘big pharma got me hooked on benzos and here I am and will be again until my insurance quits paying for it’. Got any faith in that, Ken?”

“I have faith that you’ll walk the path you choose,” Kendall murmured, but his eyes were still on Spencer, “whatever that may be.”

Spencer thought that over, turning it around and around in his mind and examining it from every angle. Finally, he spoke: “It’s my fault I’m here,” he whispered, still audible in the hush of the room, “I accept that it is… entirely my fault.”

Kendall didn’t say anything, but he kept watching him until Spencer rolled over and tried, unsuccessfully, to go to sleep.

 

* * *

 

Kendall dragged him to the dining room for breakfast, despite his grumbling, and led him in an unerring line to a table against a wall where a girl was chewing studiously on the end of her plastic fork while reading from _The Little Prince_ propped up on a vase of fake lavender.

“Spencer, this is Lindy. Lindy, this is Spencer. Lindy likes crack,” Kendall announced cheerfully. He sat down and happily began eating from Lindy’s plate while Spencer awkwardly hovered behind him. “Sit down, skinny.”

Spencer sat.

“What’s your poison?” Lindy asked, turning a page with the same fork and without looking at him.

“Uh,” said Spencer. He blinked. Swallowed. Looked around. No one was looking at him, no one was paying attention, there was no threat… but still his hands shook against his side, his heart racing, bordering panic… and he pushed through it. “A selection, I guess… mostly heroin.”

Now, she looked at him. “No wonder you’re so skinny,” she declared. “How much you weigh? They check all that shit on intake, you know. You on a health plan?”

He blinked some more, the panic receding a little in the face of her bluntness. “Ah, yes,” he mumbled. “One twenty pounds, approximately.”

She whistled, and then pushed her pancakes to him. “Nice,” she said, “bet they made all kinds of noises when they saw _that_. You’d be getting the full cocktail.”

“Mm,” Spencer said non-committedly, flushing and examining the pancakes carefully. His diet was planned to the utmost detail in order to make up for the severe malnourishment he’d presented with, but he still rarely felt hungry enough to meet his daily goals in that respect.

After a beat, he decided to take the plunge and eat the pancake. It felt… bold. Braver than he would normally be. After all, he didn’t know this woman, she could have—

He cut off that line of thought and determinedly popped a chunk of syrupy pancake in his mouth, chewing slowly.

“Spencer says it’s his fault he’s in here,” Kendall said brightly, nabbing his own chunk of pancake and swiping it in the syrup before eating it, “fully and absolutely.”

Spencer chewed slower, glaring at his roommate.

 _This_ was why he never talked.

“Oh?” Lindy asked. “Oh, sure, I get that. It’s only mostly mine. You must be a terrible kind of person.”

Spencer stared at her, swallowing with difficulty and choking out, “What?”

“My brother raped me when I was twelve so I ran away, hit the streets. From there, I’m a cliché, and now here I am,” she said smoothly, no hesitation in her voice. So smoothly that it took a moment for Spencer’s brain to catch up, still sluggish this early in the morning. Kendall, unconcerned, continued eating the pancakes. “I mean, I accept that I fucked up a _lot_ , otherwise I wouldn’t be getting out of here in two weeks, but I don’t accept that it’s _entirely_ my fault. I dunno, skinny, I think it’s a bit rough to point the finger at a twelve-year-old with nowhere to go and say she asked for it.”

Feeling somehow betrayed, Spencer looked at Kendall. “Don’t pout at me,” he replied. “We’re only supposed to accept responsibility for what we’re actually responsible for—responsibility for the _now_ before we can make amends for the _past_. You? You’re the kind of guy who can’t tell self-acceptance from self-flagellation. You don’t talk because you hate yourself for what you’ve done and you’re scared of us hating you too—I know you because I’ve _been_ you.”

“Me too,” Lindy murmured, finally looking away from the book and studying him with grey-washed eyes. “I don’t think there’s one person in here who deserved what they got. Most of them, anyway. I’ve seen some real dicks, trust me. I don’t think you’re one of them though. Kendall wouldn’t like you otherwise.”

Spencer didn’t answer. He didn’t know how.

 

**Four. ‘We have made a list of the situations in which we are most likely to use.’**

> **Treatment Plan Review [draft]**
> 
> **[for professional use only]**
> 
> **Client Name:** Spencer William Reid
> 
>  **Date:** February 3rd, 2003
> 
> Symptoms rating for level of functioning change (scale 1-5: 1-mild, 3-moderate, 5-severe)
> 
>  
> 
> Decrease in energy **3**
> 
> Panic attacks **4**
> 
> Anxiety **4**
> 
> Poor concentration **3**
> 
> Restlessness **3**
> 
> Cruelty **1**
> 
> Sleep disturbance **3**
> 
> Indecisive **3**
> 
> Irritability **3**
> 
> Worrying **5**
> 
> Hopelessness **3**
> 
> Loss of pleasure **3**
> 
> Withdrawn **3**
> 
> Mood swings **3**
> 
> Aggression/rage **N/A**
> 
> Low self-esteem **5**
> 
> Excessive guilt **5**
> 
> Depressed mood **3**
> 
> Violation of rules **N/A**
> 
> Eating disturbance **3**
> 
> Tearfulness **3**
> 
> Low motivation **3**
> 
>  
> 
> **Changes in Psychosocial/Psychological levels of distress:**
> 
>   1. Patient reports a decrease in symptoms associated with depressive disorder. However, patient also reports an increase in symptoms associated with anxiety disorder. Patient also reports feelings of isolation with other patients.
>   2. Primary therapist notes indicate that patient has been more forthcoming in one-on-one settings with regard to treating some underlying causes (re: previously untreated major depressive disorder/generalized anxiety) but refuses to discuss others (re: suspicions of previous trauma possible PTSD). Patient remains withdrawn in group therapy sessions. Visual disturbances in behaviour have stabilized (re: tearfulness, restlessness, severe mood swings). Patient is continuing course of Lexapro.
> 

> 
> **Changes in physical status:**
> 
>   1. Patient reports generalized pain with no medical source. Patient reports reduced cravings. Patient also reports a reduction in sleep disturbances and a mildly improved appetite.
>   2. Patient’s primary physician indicates that patient is on track re: eating plan and is gaining weight at an acceptable rate. Stabilization of health has been achieved. Blood tests remain clear.
> 

> 
> **Treatment Plan: Progress toward/modification of goals and objectives with estimated completion date:**

  1. > Continuing with current medication plan as outlined in medical notes, no changes required. After a discussion with the patient regarding their concern about their impact upon their social network during the course of their addiction prior to intake, it is recommended that a plan be made for reintegration of the patient’s network into their life prior to release. Nominated family/friend[s] will be required to undergo a family education session prior. Full supervision required. Progress has been steady to this point but will remain stalled until patient is able to discuss possible triggers for drug abuse and situations that may cause a relapse upon his release. Aim to have at least one outside source of social network reintegrated within three weeks of the current date.




 

**Five. ‘We ask our friends to help us avoid those situations’**

> _Dear Ethan,_
> 
> _~~My therapist would like to talk to you about the possibility of you coming here visiting com~~ _
> 
> _~~Would you like to visit? It’s completely up to you and I understand if you don’t want to. I thought of asking A you’re the only one I~~ _ _I really want to see you. I really do. I considered others but…_
> 
> _You’ve always been there for me._
> 
> _I’m enclosing an information packet with the details. It’s a lot of fuss, I know, so don’t feel bad if you want to say no. I won’t be upset._
> 
> _How’s Elle?_
> 
> _Regards, Spencer._
> 
> _02/12/2003_

> _Spencer:_
> 
> _Received a phone call today for you while you were out on Respite with your group—from an Ethan Coiro? He seemed VERY excited to come and visit. He’s certainly… exuberant! It’s so lovely to see that you have people so passionately involved in your recovery, that’s a wonderful step!_
> 
> _I’ve walked him through the process and he’ll be here next week, if all goes well._
> 
> _Congratulations!_
> 
> _Dr. Marly Brewer._

> _SPENCER._
> 
> _I’LL BE THERE WITH BELLS ON_
> 
> _(are bells allowed?)_
> 
> _E._

 

**Six. ‘We are ready to accept the help they give us’**

He woke the morning of Ethan’s visit exhausted from a night of dreaming of Aaron walking away without ever looking back. The stabilization of his mood by the medication was welcome in that he felt like he had his mind back for the first time in years, but it was also bringing with it feelings he wasn’t ready to accept.

Feelings like missing Aaron so much he thought there might be a visible sign of it under his carefully buttoned shirt. Some wound left behind, some pulsating sore that leaked and oozed with everything he was struggling to learn how to control again. After being numb for so long, emotions of this magnitude felt… overwhelming. He didn’t know how to cope with them anymore.

Feelings like the guilt. That was crushing.

Feelings like the impossible-to-ignore terror of what was waiting for him outside the rehabilitation centre. What life could he expect out there? The college would never take him back. He probably couldn’t expect much of a reference from them. He definitely couldn’t expect one from VU…

Aaron wasn’t waiting for him. Aaron was moving on. Halcyon was probably at a shelter, alone and forgotten, and Aaron was moving on with his life, just how Spencer had told him to. Lonely, perhaps, but…

It hurt.

It hurt and kept hurting through breakfast, through showering, through the slow walk to the private room where his therapist sat waiting with—

“Ethan!” Spencer said, the worry vanishing with a surge of excitement as he stepped into the room and—he realized now he’d been almost expecting his friend not to show—found the man sitting there looking stiff and overdressed in a suit and tie, as though he hadn’t known how to dress and had decided to go with ‘awkwardly formal’.

“Hi,” said Ethan, standing up and then rethinking and almost sitting down before lurching forward with uncharacteristic clumsiness to wrap Spencer in a tight hug. “Hey, hi, I mean… hey Spence. Hello. Normal hello. This is a normal hello.”

And his heart was hammering, his hands a little clammy. Spencer realized: he was nervous.

He’d missed Spencer too.

It was a sudden, strange, _brilliant_ feeling to realize he was loved.

They stood in awkward silence before Ethan, with a strained glance at Spencer’s therapist watching silently with a smile on her lips and a clipboard on her knees, burst out with: “I hate this place. It’s _creepy_. Why are all the plants fake?!”

And, for the first time in what felt like years, Spencer began to laugh.

 

* * *

 

At the end of their hour, Spencer was allowed to walk Ethan to the front door. They were watched still, but it gave the illusion of privacy as they stood by another—fake—plant and said very little, both unsure of the words they were searching for.

“Hey, Spence, I just—” Ethan began, right as Spencer gathered up his courage and gasped out, “DoyouknowhowAaronisI’mjustwondering—”

Biting at his lip, Spencer flushed and looked down, shoving his hands into his pockets and taking several worried steps backwards, the feelings back in full force and proliferated this time by the addition of already dreading Ethan and this one small link to his life stepping out those glass doors.

“I don’t think I should encourage that…” Ethan said finally after a heavy moment, his mouth turned downward. “I mean, shouldn’t you… I know you guys are over. You should probably… shit, what do I know, but—”

“No, you’re right.” Spencer’s face was burning. “I need to let it go. Aaron has no bearing on my recovery, he can’t. That’s over now…”

A brush of pressure on his arm drew his gaze upwards again. Ethan looked sad, and still somewhat uncomfortable in the suit he didn’t even wear for job interviews. “You look better,” Ethan said simply. “You really, really do. If you want me to come back, I can. I will. Just ask. I’ve been stuck with you this long, might as well see it all the way through. You know what?”

Spencer waited, curious.

Ethan continued: “I think this is it.” When he paused, he looked as though he was expecting Spencer to follow what he was saying, but Spencer just felt _confused_. What was it? “This, Spence. You, right now. You look _good_. You’re not shaking or hiding or strung out. You seemed comfortable with the doc sitting in listening to us—you _reached out_ for me to come visit. That’s progress, man. That’s progress. This might be it—this might be exactly what you need to put this aside for good.”

“Addiction is a chronic dis—” Spencer began.

Ethan interrupted: “Remission can last a lifetime,” he said firmly. “You know where I am.”

He left. Spencer winced as the expected pain of that goodbye washed over him.

Then, he paused. He considered it.

Pain meant that he _was_ feeling something.

Maybe it was worth it.

 

**Seven. ‘We honestly hope they will help’**

Ethan and Elle visited the next week. By request—warned ahead of time—they participated in a private therapy session with Spencer’s primary therapist.

“Do you understand that recovery doesn’t end when you walk out of these doors?” the therapist asked Spencer towards the end of the session, every one of them feeling wrung out and worn out.

“Yes,” Spencer said. He knew. He absolutely knew. But, for the first time, he also knew _hope_.

“He’ll have help,” Ethan added. Elle took his hand and looked away, a smile on her mouth that was soft and sad and a little bit just for Spencer alone.

He accepted it, along with what it offered.

Accepting their help didn’t mean he was weak.

It meant he was human.

 

**Eight. ‘We have made a list of the persons we have harmed and to whom we hope to make amends’**

Kendall had become a permanent part of his life at the rehab centre, playing daily games of chess—that he never won—and treating each loss with a cheerful kind of ‘oh well’ attitude. He never stopped playing though, despite his monumental defeats.

And Spencer got used to walking into his room and finding Kendall sitting there with the battered travel-sized chess set, waiting to play.

This week, they were all bussed to a nearby beach to ‘relax’. The weather was barely warm, the sand was icy under their feet, and Kendall had abandoned chess in order to teach Spencer volleyball. Spencer, predictably, was terrible.

“I don’t understand how you’re so _bad_ at it,” Kendall grumbled, finally letting Spencer, unhappily coated in sand and bruises, slink away from the makeshift game they’d set up. “You’re so tall!”

“I’m all leg,” Spencer said morosely, wiggling around until he could dig a strand of seaweed out of his shorts.

“All chicken legs,” Kendall replied. Despite Spencer’s insistence that he should go back and play, he sat down by Spencer’s side on the cement sidewalk running around the small beach they were being supervised on, and watched the choppy ocean with him. Until: “You know, I don’t want to leave.”

“The beach?” Spencer blinked, startled out of a half-daydream, half-wistful hope of spending time with Aaron and Halcyon on a beach just like this one.

“Rehab. This place. Well, the centre anyway. The world feels big and scary, my friend. And I’m not good enough at chess to plan my way along out there.” Spencer didn’t really know what to say. Before he could answer, Kendall had spoken again, almost to himself: “I think I’m mostly scared about facing everyone sober, my family and what friends I have left. I did shit, man, I hurt people…”

“We all did,” Spencer replied quietly and ruefully, his own mind suddenly racing with his mood dropping sharply into a wave of choking guilt. Ethan, Aaron, his mom, Aaron, Aaron…

“I pawned my daughter’s Christmas presents.” Kendall sounded tearful. Spencer winced. “I would have pawned my damn _wedding ring,_ but my wife got smart and hid them both. What kind of a man does that make me?”

This, Spencer knew how to answer. He stood, his own heart hammering and his gut twisting into a tight, miserable knot. “A flawed one,” he said bluntly, “like the rest of us. You think I deserve to get better, to go home? To who? The boyfriend I slugged so he’d leave me alone while I deliberately overdosed, after telling him that he’s _just_ like his mother, staying with his abusive father? Or the best friend whose nose I broke and who I accused of only standing by my side in order to fix his own fuck-ups through me? Or my mother, who I threw into a sanatorium and then ignored for two years while I got high. Or the man—” He stopped, choked, spat out: “ _Everyone_ deserves better than we do. And you deserve more than me. At least you never hurt them…”

His furious, self-recriminatory speech finished, he turned and strode away, unwilling to let Kendall see the tears that were threatening and that he refused to shed. Instead, he found his way to the bus, begged to be allowed to sit on there so long as a staff member checked in on him, and curled up in a seat and rode out the pain and the almost welcoming hopelessness that followed, leaving him numb and empty.

It was only after they’d driven home and he crawled into bed that he realized: it was the first depressive swing he’d had in weeks. The first mood swing he’d had in weeks, even if it was driven by self-loathing.

He _was_ getting better.

Which meant…

“I’m going to do better,” he whispered. Kendall’s steady breathing didn’t change, but Spencer heard him turn his head towards him. “When I get out of here? Everyone I hurt? I’m going to do better with them. And that’s how I’m going to face the world—with a plan to make amends. I can’t be the person I was before my addiction, but I can still be someone real enough that they can love me for who I am now. I don’t need chess to do that.”

Kendall didn’t answer, but Spencer woke in the morning to him sitting on the bed opposite, his smile returned.

“Chess?”

 

**Nine. ‘We shall do all we can to make amends, in any way that will not cause further harm’**

Ethan was alone this week. Spencer was quiet.

He had something to say and didn’t really know how to say it.

That lasted right up until the therapist called an end to the session, standing ready to lead Ethan to the door and out. A clammy, nervous mess, Spencer remained in the chair he was pretty sure he’d sweated through, until both Ethan and the therapist turned to look curiously at his refusal to move.

“Hey, I know my jokes were bad but…” Ethan said awkwardly, the worry he’d been almost hiding the entire hour becoming more prominent.

“Spencer, is there something you’d like to—” his therapist began

Spencer cut her off. He launched into the room the words he’d been auditioning since the trip to the beach the week before, since he’d sat in that bus and thought about his list, since he’d finally realized the step he needed to take to begin to heal. To begin to make amends, not just to his friends, but also… but also to himself. To the person he’d been.

He almost yelled them, so desperate to get them out: “I don’t think I deserved it.”

Silence. They stared at him, his therapist confused and Ethan blank-faced.

He tried again, slower, calmer, or as calm as he could be when he thought that he might be about to have a panic attack: “I don’t… I don’t think I deserved it.”

“Deserved what?” asked his therapist, her hand on the door handle and still faltering, unsure of what was happening.

Ethan, however, met Spencer’s gaze. Whatever he saw there, his eyes widened.

He nodded.

Spencer took a deep breath, and continued, stronger this time: “He told me I deserved it, that I asked for it. The man who raped me when I was fifteen told me… told me I wanted it. And I didn’t. I don’t think…” He stopped, breathed, started again: “I _know_ I didn’t do any of those things. I didn’t ask for it. I didn’t want it. And I didn’t deserve it. I know this, but I don’t believe it yet. And… and I think I need to learn to, if I want to get better.”

The therapist’s hand slid from the handle, and she walked back to the chair. After a beat, Ethan followed.

And Spencer talked.

 

**Ten. ‘We will continue to make such lists and revise them as needed’**

> **Treatment Plan Review [draft]**
> 
> **[for professional use only]**
> 
> **Client Name:** Spencer William Reid
> 
>  **Date:** March 17th, 2003
> 
> Symptoms rating for level of functioning change (scale 1-5: 1-mild, 3-moderate, 5-severe)
> 
>  
> 
> Decrease in energy **1**
> 
> Panic attacks **1**
> 
> Anxiety **4**
> 
> Poor concentration **1**
> 
> Restlessness **3**
> 
> Cruelty **N/A**
> 
> Sleep disturbance **3**
> 
> Indecisive **3**
> 
> Irritability **1**
> 
> Worrying **4**
> 
> Hopelessness **1**
> 
> Loss of pleasure **2**
> 
> Withdrawn **2**
> 
> Mood swings **N/A**
> 
> Aggression/rage **N/A**
> 
> Low self-esteem **3**
> 
> Excessive guilt **5**
> 
> Depressed mood **3**
> 
> Violation of rules **N/A**
> 
> Eating disturbance **1**
> 
> Tearfulness **N/A**
> 
> Low motivation **1**
> 
>  
> 
> **Changes in Psychosocial/Psychological levels of distress:**
> 
>   1. Patient reports a decrease in almost all symptoms. Patient reports elevated mood and hope for the future. Shows considerable interest in release and the time moving forward, although is still withdrawn and reluctant to be included in group activities. Depressive symptoms have stabilized and patient is more outgoing with regards to interests and hobbies than previously indicated. Patient reports a complete reduction in suicidal ideation and no longer considers themselves passively suicidal. Patient still reports moderate to severe anxiety and does indicate that they feel excessive guilt in regards to their past conduct.
>   2. Primary therapist notes indicate that patient has been more forthcoming in one-on-one settings and is openly discussing past trauma with some distress. Patient has been successful with reintegrating without outside social support.
> 

> 
> **Changes in physical status:**
> 
>   1. Patient reports nil physical ailments beyond side-effects associated with continued medication plan (re: dreams, some light-headedness, sporadic fits of shivering, drastically reduced sexual drive). Patient reports that they are willing to continue the medication despite side-effects.
>   2. Physician reports that patient has reached goal weight and maintained consistent good health with all blood tests remaining clear.
> 

> 
> **Treatment Plan: Progress toward/modification of goals and objectives with estimated completion date:**

  1. > Continuing with current medication plan as outlined in medical notes, but discuss the possibility of anxiety medication being made available to assist in periods when patient is undergoing treatment for trauma related stresses. With patient release upcoming, ensure that outside support is well aware of the need for continued treatment outside of this facility, including continued therapy, completing the medication plan before undergoing a psychiatric evaluation, and the need to avoid possible triggers for drug-related activities.




 

**Eleven. ‘We appreciate what our friends have done and are doing to help us’**

> _Ethan!_
> 
> _ONE WEEK TO GO!!_
> 
> _I’m excited! Are you excited! I’ve been practically bouncing all week apparently—at least Kendall says so. He thinks you’re a pretty lady I’m eager to go home to. Little does he know…_
> 
> _Did you say you’d moved apartments?! When?! Uh… my stuff? Do you need me to find a new place when I get out? I wasn’t sure I’d heard the message correctly when I received it, but I’m practising avoiding anxiety about situations that I have no control over within my current context. I’m not very good at it. My doctor says I’m too much brain and not enough thought._
> 
> _Speaking of Kendall, he’s leaving today. They extended his stay slightly because his living circumstances outside had become untenable, which was one of his listed triggers, but I guess he’s either more confidant now or his insurance is running out because he’s leaving… I’ll be sad to see him go. He’s helped me immeasurably._
> 
> _He’s leaving me his chess board. I already have one at home and this is just a tiny little travel set with torn felt and missing polymer pieces but it feels important, somehow. Like it’s a sign of something._
> 
> _We’re not exchanging contact details for once we’re outside. Neither of us think that would be clever._
> 
> _I’ll miss him, but I don’t need to see him again to appreciate everything he’s taught me. Just like I’ll never forget everything you’ve done for me._
> 
> _(That doesn’t mean you’re allowed to leave yet okay I’m still fragile ; ) )_
> 
> _BY THE TIME YOU GET THIS LETTER I’LL BE ALMOST HOME (unless you don’t want me at your new place that’s cool too I have places to go of course : ) : ) )_
> 
> _Regards, Spencer!_

> _Spencer,_
> 
> _You’re an idiot. You have a room here. I moved FOR you, you fuckwit. Didn’t think you’d appreciate returning to the same surroundings you’d gotten so fucked up in._
> 
> _Also, this apartment allows pets. Do NOT ask about the cat. And ignore Elle. SHE LIES_ (I do not lie—he absolutely got the cat because he missed you HE MISSED YOU AND GOT A CAT) _SHE’S LYING IGNORE HER. AND DON’T ASK THE CAT’S NAME. UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE, ITS NAME IS **CAT**_ (it’s Specky, he named it Specky) _ONLY BECAUSE IT’S WEIRD LIKE YOU._
> 
> _That line of smiley faces is kinda manic._
> 
> _I’m not going to mail this, just staple it to your door for when you get home which is TOMORROW (see, I can do over-excitable all-caps as well)_
> 
> _I’m not playing chess with you._
> 
> _E._

 

**Twelve. ‘We, in turn, are ready to help others who may come to us in the same way’**

His last night was quiet. There was a muted celebration of his leaving that the staff dispelled quickly, well used to him by now and knowing his discomfort to be the centre of attention.

He retired to bed early and found the empty bed next to his filled. A boy, barely his age, skinny as Spencer himself had been before a solid three months of regular meals and supplementary vitamins had returned him to health, shivering and alone and clearly wiping tears from his eyes.

Wary of overstepping, Spencer murmured _hello_ and stepped past to his own bed, curling into a ball and closing his eyes, already anxious to be up and packing and _leaving_ the very next day.

There was a sniff next to him.

Spencer rolled over, looking at the boy. The boy, studiously, looked the other way.

And, after a long beat, Spencer reached under his bed and withdrew Kendall’s chess set. “Do you play?” he asked simply. “It helps to keep your mind distracted.”

The boy looked at him. “Yeah,” he said roughly, looking away and then back again and, softer now, adding, “My name is Tom.”

When Spencer packed in the morning, he left the chess set behind.

 

**Beginning.**

_A note to myself in the time moving forward._

_I, Spencer Reid, being of (sometimes) sound mind and (reasonably) sound body, hereby decide the following:_

  1. _That this is a ridiculous document that Ethan will never stop teasing me about if I let him find it and therefore will HIDE it excellently._
  2. _That I promise to be accountable for my actions and for the hurts that I’ve caused the people I love; and_
  3. _That I promise to make amends where I can without causing further harm; and_
  4. _That I promise to move beyond my trauma. I was never the man that Ross Connors tried to of me, and I am no longer the man that I allowed myself to become; and_
  5. _That I promise to accept setbacks, not allow them to consume me; and that finally_
  6. _I will keep going._



_I have the rest of my life left to prove that I can keep going._

_I can._


	51. Diana Reid

> _This is the hardest letter I’ve ever written. I don’t know if there’ll be harder in my future, but I imagine so, because I need to atone for my past._

The Starbucks was quiet this early in the morning, the girl behind the counter sleepy-eyed and clearly not ready to be there. Spencer watched her for a moment as she calibrated her milk thermometer, before looking back at his letter. The black ink stared up at him accusingly, the biro tapping against the table.

To stall the moment he had to gather his frantic thoughts together, he watched the small town outside beginning to wake up. Leaves blew down the dry street, the sky cloudy and grim. A few shopfronts were beginning to hang Halloween decorations, pumpkins and black cats and cobwebs in the doorways. It was three days until his twenty-second birthday.

Back to the letter, his pen scratching on the paper: _I need you to know why I am who I am._

It would be easier this way. A way to bypass his messy brain and get the words out in a way his mom could read and understand, with him right there to support it. Easier, but not easy.

This was the beginning of him leaving his past behind.

When he drove away from the Starbucks he’d spent his morning in, the sun was rising overhead. The clouds dispelled just slightly. It was still a grim day, but not completely so.

He was alone, as he’d chosen to be, driving to a destination he both dreaded and longed for. The letter was unfinished on the passenger seat beside him.

That was okay. He had plenty of time to get it right.

 

> _I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I’m sorry I never came to you for help. I just couldn’t face how hurt you’d be, how angry, how betrayed. We trusted him… I trusted him. And I messed up. Then, and after, when I didn’t come to you. I should have. You were always there for me, when I was a child, and you would have been there for me then, when I was still a child but mistakenly thought I could be a man. I couldn’t._
> 
> _I’m no longer ashamed of what he did to me. I don’t hide behind forgetting anymore. For so long, I hid behind the mask of the man I thought he’d made of me—a cruel and broken man. That’s what this letter is about. I don’t need your forgiveness; I don’t deserve it. It’s not going to give us back the years we’ve lost now; those years are gone._
> 
> _I do ask for your love, because I know I can’t go on without it._
> 
> _But, before I ask for the return of your love, I need to tell you who I became. You’re not going to like the man I speak about now. He’s not the boy you raised. He’s not the man I ever thought I would be._
> 
> _I’m not ashamed of being raped by Ross Connors. Nothing I ever did brought that down upon me; I am and was blameless._
> 
> _I am ashamed of what I did after._
> 
> _I’m ashamed of the following_ :

He had to stop there, to pause and pick at the greasy burger and fries he’d bought from the tired truck-stop employee. It wasn’t as festive as the last time he’d been here. Outside, night was falling, but there was no snow. No Aaron’s car parked against the railing. No Halcyon to take outside to relieve herself.

Spencer ate the fries that tasted like nothing in particular, staring out the window into the darkened night and thinking about who he had once been. He wondered; what would happen now, if he was to see Aaron again? Would their story be the same?

Was he strong enough yet to put his shameful past behind him?

When he turned his attention back to the garishly lit interior of the stop, it was bustling, bright, real in a way he wasn’t sure he was yet. His stomach growled, angry at the grease he was loading it with, his back aching from the endless hours spent driving. He’d nap in the car before he continued on, he decided. It’d be safe to do so here, with plenty of others around.

He abandoned the burger and bought a candy bar instead, finishing it while sitting on the hood of the car he’d bought from Ethan and watching two kids bicker about who got the front seat.

In his pocket, the letter was still unfinished.

Before he left, he bought a hat with fluffy earflaps, blushing when the cashier complimented him on it. He propped it on the dash and drove onwards, refreshed and renewed.

The letter was unfinished, but it wouldn’t be for long.

 

> _I’m an addict. I’ve always been easily fixated, easily obsessed… by knowledge, by Aaron, and, as it turns out, by self-medicating. That part of me comes as no real surprise to myself. To you, perhaps, because you always thought I could be so much more._
> 
> _But I’m not. I’m just a junkie, the same as any other. Ross built me up and he broke me down and I didn’t know how to cope so I found a way I didn’t have to. That sounds like an excuse. I promise, I’m not trying to make excuses for myself. I’m just trying to explain what happened._
> 
> _The night it happened, I called you. I was hysterical. You didn’t answer but you returned my calls. Ross waylaid them. I’m sorry I never told you the truth. He told you I was ill. That was true, in a way, I’ve never been more confused than I was those days. He told you I was safe. That was a lie._
> 
> _After Ross, they sent me away. To DC. You’ll remember—we told you that I was being transferred because of my abilities, to somewhere where they could cater more easily to my interests. That was also a lie._
> 
> _In DC, I spiralled. You’ll remember that too… we told you I was okay. That was one more lie. I drank. A little at first until the days began to bleed together and then I met a woman, a dealer. Her name is Clary. You’ll hate her for what she taught me to do. I don’t hate her. I pity her. She never had the opportunities that I threw away. I wonder now how much she despised me for that, for seeing how callously I treated everything she’d never had a chance to even have._
> 
> _She gave me drugs. Free, at first, you know that’s how they work. Then the prices go up. But she went off script. I don’t know what happened. I began a sexual tryst with her. That’s a strange word to use, but it wasn’t a relationship and it wasn’t kind and I promise—she never knew how old I was. I’m sorry. I let you down._
> 
> _It wasn’t unusual that I slept with her. I was doing the same to anyone who would allow it. I guess it was unusual that it continued. I think she saw something kinder in me than I ever saw in myself. And I just kept getting high and finding strangers to take me home._
> 
> _Ross took away my right to say no._
> 
> _I guess I figured all I had left was saying yes._

The farmer’s scarecrow wasn’t doing a very good job. Spencer sympathized. He watched the crows picking at the dirt below the scarecrow’s pole, talons scratching in the dust. Around them, dry corn loomed. Somewhere behind him, the car waited, the final day of his drive already behind him.

His legs ached. He trudged along the beaten path between the lines of corn, hearing a dog bark distantly. The crows scattered. He breathed air that was cool and almost biting.

It was relaxing. He needed that. When he touched his hand to the letter in his pocket, he felt his fingers tremble. It wasn’t ready yet. He couldn’t give it to her like this… not like this. She needed to see the light at the end of his journey. To see how far he’d come.

He had come far.

He turned and began to walk back to the car.

He _had_ come far.

The crows landed again, already forgetting that he’d frightened them. His mark on this land was passing.

He smiled.

> _Someone once told me that I had every opportunity to escape the cage I’d built for myself. They’re right. I was so blind, spending so much time flailing around in the dark that I never realized I was surrounded by people holding flashlights and calling my name. Aaron, Ethan, Elle… even Clary, in her own broken way._
> 
> _You would have been there too, if I’d have let you. Another thing I need to apologise for._
> 
> _There’s one more thing I need to tell you. This… this is the hardest part of the letter._
> 
> _It’s been almost two years now since the night I tried to die. That night I came to you, shortly after, I didn’t tell you about this. I told you a little about the drugs. I tried to tell you about Ross. I never mentioned dying._
> 
> _I didn’t. Aaron stopped me. Because he stopped me, I’m still here today. I’m better than I was. I can be better still._
> 
> _I’ll never stop being thankful for that._

On the last night, he slept in the car on the outskirts of Vegas, parked in the desert. The wind was rough, blowing dirt against the car in a patterning whisper of background sound.

The chair dug into his hip. He rolled, grumbled, sleepily covered his eyes as cars passed on the freeway beside him and leaked light into his vehicle. He drifted.

He dreamed of Aaron and woke broken-hearted but determined nonetheless.

 

> _I’m not the boy I was anymore, but I’m not that man either. I opened my eyes. I accepted the help that was offered to me. I moved forward. I hope to continue doing so._
> 
> _I still fear my future, just as much as I still fear the past. I think I’ll carry these fears for the rest of my life, in some way. But I know that Ethan will be there, that you’ll be there. I know I won’t be alone._
> 
> _One day, I’ll accept the mistakes of my past and use them to create my future. I don’t know if I’m ready for that quite yet, but one day. I know I have the potential to do so. I know I have the opportunity._
> 
> _I’m in communication with a man smoothing my pathway into a new career. He’s intrigued by my work, fascinated by my mind, and—despite knowing about the sins of my past—utterly sure that I have a future. It’s been a long time since I’ve trusted someone to lead me into a new life, but I feel like I can trust him. Elle believes so. I have to take a considerable amount of training and I’m not sure yet if I’m ready to face it._
> 
> _But I know I have to try._

There was one place he wanted to go first.

He drove home.

They still owned the house. Spencer had been meaning to come here, to sort through his mother’s belongings, to… organize their affairs. He’d known since he’d turned eighteen that he’d have to sell the house one day; he’d never felt right thinking about it while he was under the thrall of his own addictions.

But he wasn’t anymore.

The key was cool in his hand and slipped easily into the well-maintained lock. One final gift from William that Spencer had refused to acknowledge had been given: the house was looked after. The lawn was mowed, the swing Spencer had hung for himself when he was eleven still hung from the tree out the back. No windows were broken. The inside of the house, when he stepped into the cool interior, was only somewhat closed in.

But it was a stranger’s home now. The furniture was unfamiliar, hidden beneath dust-covers. A stranger’s hand kept the mantle dusted, swept the floors, wiped the bannister of the staircase. He looked around and felt out of place.

His mom’s room was empty now. Her favourite books had gone to join her, the others boxed away. The bed was unmade, covered with yet another white sheet. He left that place quickly.

His room was very much how he’d left it the day he’d packed for college. The books were still on their shelves, a dusty model of the solar system hung overhead. The blinds were open but, when he closed them, overhead, the ceiling was alive with glow-in-the-dark stickers he’d carefully matched to the sky outside. He studied it and smiled. It was a harvest sky, the constellations of Halloween above.

His desk was neat, mostly bare. He’d taken almost everything with him when he’d left. Almost everything.

There was a box with notepaper in it, a box of pens beside it. He picked it up, recognising it and tracing his thumb over the stickers he’d plastered all over it. Aaron had given him these stickers, a strange variety of sports teams and movie references, whatever had caught the then eleven-year-old boy’s eye. Behind the desk, the wall was exactly the same.

Exactly the same.

Drawings pinned up of a fort looming above a quarry, guarded by two wizards with long hats and flowing pencil-scratched robes. Another of a great wave of spiders. Yet another: the wizards turning back the Armies of Fear. Between the pictures, there were postcards, movie tickets, the torn off edge of a poster Aaron had sent him. The newspaper clipping declaring that their story had placed in the New York Times.

A photo: Spencer almost cried out with surprise when he saw it. He’d… he’d forgotten it existed, this dusty polaroid snapped by Sean on the single timeless holiday Spencer had spent with them. He’d hidden it and brought it here, unwilling to leave something so treasured in his dorm room, perhaps already suspecting Ross, even then.

It was him and Aaron, looking at the camera. A fake grin plastered on his face, a real one on Aaron’s.

They were so young.

They were holding hands.

When he left that place, he did so with the paperwork he’d need to fill out to organize the sale of the house, the number of a moving company who’d take his mother’s and his belongings to a storage container in DC until he had time to sort through them, and the photo in his pocket.

He was finally ready to finish the letter.

 

> _I wrote you this letter not because I’m too scared to face you. I am, in some ways, because I never wanted to hurt you, and I know this will. I’m writing it because I should have told you sooner. Because I’ve waited so long to tell you that I can’t find the words without first writing them down. Because you deserve to know._
> 
> _I love you and I always have. I’ve always been proud to be your son, but I’m only just relearning that maybe you’re proud to be my mom._
> 
> _I’m sorry I ever doubted that._
> 
> _I’m sitting outside Bennington now. In half an hour, I’ll be with you. I’ll hand you this letter. I’ll watch you read it. I wonder if you’ll be able to finish it. If you can’t, that’s fine. I’ll be right there for you._
> 
> _And, this time, I’m not going anywhere._
> 
> _Love, Spencer_
> 
> _October, 28 th, 2003_

And, with that, Spencer stepped from the car, locked it behind him, and walked up the path to Bennington.

Moving forward.


	52. December, 2003

They were sober and quiet, watching the faintest hint of fireworks over the skyline beyond Elle’s apartment. The roof, oddly, was silent except for a man standing with his daughter by the adjourning edge; the five of them welcomed the New Year together.

“I’m getting old,” Elle said glumly, after the man had carried his sleepy child back down into the building. Spencer watched as Ethan looked at her, his hand twitching as though to reach out and take her hand, before he pulled it back. Something was different there; something was changing. Gone were the easy touches and comfortable gestures they’d slipped into together. Spencer would be sad to see something ending between them, except Ethan was just as withdrawn with him as well.

It was frightening. Time was slipping onwards.

“You’re supposed to complain about getting older on your birthday, not on the New Year,” Spencer said instead of facing that end hurtling towards them, the one that was written in Ethan’s silence and his sudden interest in Spencer’s monetary situation recently. “Tonight you’re supposed to complain about, I don’t know, dieting. Or eating healthily or—”

“Stop there, kid,” Elle said, her head snapping around as she frowned at him. “You’re treading _dangerously_ close to calling me fat.”

He backtracked, his hand almost knocking his glass to juice over as he quickly rambled: “No, no, I mean a New Year’s Resolution, not weight or, um, health or… I actually can’t think of any other than dieting right now, but I’m sure there’s a ton, I’m just—”

“I’m leaving,” said Ethan.

Silence fell between them three. The fireworks rattled merrily onwards. Nearby, a window must have been opened, the raucous party within spilling without with loud cries of good cheer.

Spencer swallowed.

Elle said, “I know,” and reached out to take his hand. She looked sad. She looked resigned. Ethan simply looked tired. “I found your ticket.”

“Ticket?” Spencer asked, the last one to know once more.

Now, Ethan looked at him. “Gonna travel for a bit, I think,” he said hoarsely. “Play some music, just… live. I don’t know. See places. I’ve been here for almost ten years now, Spence, and I’m tired. I’m tired of not being able to see the stars. I’m tired of playing in shitty clubs to people who don’t give a shit. I’m tired of living in shithole after shithole, like we’re just barely existing.”

_Tired of me?_ Spencer wanted to ask, but that was a kind of mindset he was supposed to have left behind, along with the drugs and Aaron. None of which had ever really left him.

“I’m sorry,” Ethan was still saying, this time to Elle, and this time Spencer did see emotion. A swallow, a glint in a dangerously glassy eye, before he looked away and hid his expression. “I…”

“Don’t,” Elle replied shortly. “Don’t say that before you walk away. Don’t be a cunt.”

Ethan nodded.

“When do you leave?” Spencer scraped his shoe on the rocky rooftop, shivering despite the blanket around his shoulders.

“February. You’ll be okay without me though, Spence, won’t you? I shouldn’t—”

It was Spencer’s turn to be sharp: “Don’t do that,” he said, but his voice was gentler than Elle’s. “You’ve been doing that for years, Eth. Putting me before yourself… this is for _you_. As an aside, I will be fine without you, you know, I’m somewhat capable—” If Elle’s laugh was a little too damp, they ignored it and let her continue to study the sky for the fading remains of smoke. “—and I can feed myself now and… and…” He faltered: “And… I’ll miss you.”

Ethan nodded again, standing and holding out his hand. “It’s 2004,” he said quietly, pulling Spencer upright before trying to turn Elle to face them. She fought him without a word, her face still tilted away, sidling away from his companionable arm before finally looking at them once she’d composed herself: “I’m going to be thirty this year. It’s a good time to do something different. But I’ll come back.”

“I won’t wait,” Elle warned him with a sniff. “I don’t wait, bucko, I’m no damsel.”

And Ethan said quietly: “I know.”

Later that night, Ethan found Spencer sitting on his bed letting Specky chase the shredded end of what had once been a tie, the cat barely taking notice of Ethan sitting beside them. Spencer let him have the tie, petting his tabby-striped back as Ethan toyed with the lashing tail between them.

“One year sober, huh,” Ethan pointed out.

Spencer smiled: “Yeah. That won’t change just because you’re not here to kick my ass, Ethan, I promise.”

A nod was his answer, slow and careful, before Ethan asked: “Do you think about Aaron much? Anymore? I mean, besides when he emails, which… you know, I’ll still do that for you. You can still contact me, I’ll find, I don’t know. Libraries. Computers. Somewhere. A laptop.”

Spencer was honest, because he knew this wasn’t about him and Aaron, not right now. “All the time.”

“Does it ever stop hurting?”

Did it? Spencer considered how it had felt a year ago, walking away from Aaron for the last time. And he thought about now, healthy and hopeful with only the scars of his past to account for, despite the ways his mind still tried to drag him down. “It hurts less,” he said finally, “as time goes on. It was right though, that we separated…”

Ethan breathed in, breathed out, and asked, “Is it right? For me and… her, I guess. For me and her to… separate. Now… then. Maybe. For… good.”

“Yes,” Spencer said bluntly. “You can do it on your own, but you have to let yourself.”

And Ethan nodded.


	53. Clarabelle Hart

**January, 2004**

The last night before Ethan left was silent. They went for a drive in the January rain, parking down by the Potomac and watching a dog run along the riverbank just out of the city.

“You’ve come a long way,” Ethan said softly, his voice almost hidden by the battering rain. The windshield wipers swished busily across the window, Spencer’s eyes ticking from side to side as he patiently watched them work, fingers fiddling with the packet of crisps he was holding and contemplating eating. “You know that, right?”

“I know,” Spencer replied, because he did, really. One year sober and the burn of losing Aaron had faded to a dull throb of wanting. He was okay.

“You’ll keep going without me,” Ethan continued. Spencer looked at him and realized; this wasn’t for Spencer’s sake. “Yeah, you’ll be alright…”

“Elle mad at you?” Spencer asked.

Ethan laughed brokenly. “A little. I guess. She’s still coming to see me off tomorrow… we’re over.”

The rain slowed a little, just a little.

“I’m sorry,” Spencer murmured. “It… hurts to say goodbye.”

“Yeah.”

They stayed until the rain built up again, Ethan fiddling with the radio and singing along softly before asking, “You still in contact with the FBI? That’s a big deal. Get a foot in the door there… that’s big. A real career, Spence. Finish your doctorate on the side, put everything behind you… yeah, that’s real.”

Smiling, Spencer nodded, leaning his cheek against the car window and watching the rain fall. He still loved the rain. “I’m terrified. I’m awkward, reticent, physically inept… I don’t know if I can do what they’re asking of me…” Ethan frowned, looking at him with his hand pausing on the dial, but Spencer wasn’t done: “…but I know I’m going to try. Too far now to stop, right?”

“Right.” Ethan nodded as well to illustrate his point. “And, well, don’t get killed chasing baddies, okay? That’d suck.”

Spencer laughed: “I won’t, promise.”

It seemed like an age as Ethan paused, eyeing him over, but it was really over a minute before he leaned over and brushed his lips across Spencer’s forehead, pulling him into a hug that lingered. He didn’t speak, but he didn’t have to.

“I know,” Spencer murmured. “I’ll miss you too.”

 

**July, 2004**

July was big. He started at the academy, realized he was absolutely as terrible at anything physical as he’d expected, but didn’t lose hope. Too far to stop now; that was his mantra and his driving force.

He wrote letters to his mom daily. So long as he kept that up, he couldn’t slip—like the diary from so long ago, but with so much more to lose if he failed. He told her about Gideon, he told her about the academy training, about being terrible with a gun, about his tiny new apartment that he filled with books, about Ethan’s weekly phone calls, and he told her about Aaron.

He told her about the final email with Aaron.

It was, he realized, time to move on. Aaron wasn’t coming back; Spencer couldn’t go back either.

He told her about the dates he’d gone on. One man, mostly women; he didn’t have a preference but realized that he held the man to a much higher standard than the women. A bar too high for them to beat, cemented by his burning past. What kind of a man could be better than the one he’d already chased away?

None, and so he declined his offer of a second date with an apology and a smile.

The women he was kinder to, more open, but they still lacked _something_. None of them could he imagine staying up all night with in a fort made of memories or standing on a pier facing down a storm.

Perhaps alone was what he was meant to be. Penance for his past.

His cell buzzed often. Usually picture messages from Ethan, usually of his cat. He’d taught the animal to sit on his backpack as he walked, paws on Ethan’s shoulders and whiskers turned up to the wind. _Trash Man and his Trash Cat_ Elle had always called them, and Spencer couldn’t help but laugh when he opened a message to find another picture of them peering up at him and grinning.

Sometimes, the messages were Elle, asking how he was going. He always said fine. She always said the same. They didn’t really know how to _be_ around each other, not without Ethan as a buffer.

And life went on. He was alive. He was moving forward.

Nothing could stop him.

Not even loneliness.

 

**September, 2004**

“Thought you said you were fine,” Elle said.

Spitting out mud from his teeth, Spencer staggered up and stared at her, leaning on the fence of the training yard and smirking at his dirt-splattered self. “I am fine,” he said hotly, wiping his face. “I’m just—”

“Failing absolutely everything that involves any kind of physical effort?”

He swallowed. “No,” he lied.

She didn’t seem to believe him. “Hmm,” she said, still smiling like that and barely holding back a laugh, and he turned away to hide his frustration. “Aw, kid, don’t be like that. Hey. Hey!”

He looked at her, watching her jump the fence and walk over to him, looking her up and down. “What?” His tone was about as filthily grumpy as the rest of him.

Elle didn’t seem put off: “What are you struggling with most?”

There was an awkward moment between them, leaden with everything they’d seen of each other. Spencer burned with embarrassment, remembering the darkest parts of him she’d seen, remembering stoned days laying in his living room drawing endless pictures of nothing…

“Spence. Come on. We’ve all got stuff we’re shit at.”

He took a breath. “My shooting is abysmal,” he gritted out finally, feeling his face burn under his muddy mask.

She touched his arm, her eyebrow up and smile sharp: “I can fix that,” she said.

It took them months, but she did.

 

**October, 2004**

It had become a strange kind of ritual. He spent his day at the academy training; his evenings with Elle either shooting or sparring—he was terrible, absolutely, but less terrible than he had been, and she never cut him a break—and his nights limping around his apartment thinking about all the new bruises she’d given him.

Today was nothing new, except he’d landed funny and his limping was a little more pronounced than usual as he made his way from the changerooms at the academy. She was waiting for him outside, showered and dressed and eyes discerning.

“You’re hopeless,” she sighed, gaze locked on his knee. “You fuck that up? I _showed_ you how to fall.”

“Then you flung me,” he whined grumpily. She flicked him with her towel. “It’s fine, Elle. I’ll just go home and—”

“Keep it still and then yell tomorrow when you find out it’s seized up completely,” she cut in.

Which, from past experience, was probably true.

So, it was decided. Elle drove him home and they made their way to his apartment where she forced him to have _another_ hot shower and then laid him out with a tube of Mentholatum and a towel wrapped around his waist.

“Stay still,” she warned him. He did.

Mostly.

By the end of it, he was a sleepy, achy, quiet puddle of a terrible trainee, dozing on the couch while Elle washed up. In the kitchen, he heard his landline ring, choosing to ignore it.

“Hey,” Elle said suddenly, jerking him out of a pleasant, drifting feeling. He looked up at her, blinking and shaking himself awake with a grunt. “You didn’t tell me it was your birthday. That was your mom on the answering machine…”

Oh.

“I forgot,” he said honestly, sitting up and readjusting the towel. “I guess I didn’t really have a reason to remember…” As he spoke, he looked to his cell, sitting silently on the table. Silent, no message from Ethan…

She touched his hand, her touch damp and warm against his skin. “Happy birthday,” she said with a cocky half-smile. “You’re so old now—”

Whatever she was going to say was lost as his cell buzzed on the table. An unknown number.

“Probably Ethan,” Spencer said, not hiding his eagerness as he lunged forward to answer it. “Two secs—hello, this is Dr. Reid—”

It wasn’t Ethan.

 

* * *

 

Later, he’d wonder why they called him. Really, it wasn’t hard to guess. She didn’t have anyone else and he understood that. He didn’t really have anyone else either.

But that wasn’t true.

Elle walked beside him, her fingers brushing his wrist in a companionable gesture. Their feet echoed down the silent halls of the morgue. This was his first time identifying a body. He doubted it would be his last, if Jason Gideon got his way.

He hoped it was his last for someone he knew.

“It might not be her,” he said to Elle distantly. She looked at him strangely. “I mean, it’s been years… I might not even _recognise_ her. Maybe someone else had her phone. Maybe…”

She held his hand tight and didn’t let go.

And it was her.

 

* * *

 

He buried Clary because she had no one else to do so for her. He didn’t have a lot of money, but enough to give her more than an unmarked grave. When it came to headstones, he was torn. For her to be buried unmarked was horrifying to him, but his funds were tight and getting tighter…

Elle helped.

“Why?” he asked her, as they watched the coffin being lowered into the shady grave. They were alone except for the man lowering Clary into her final resting place. In Spencer’s hand, the scrunched-up eulogy he’d written—because _someone had to,_ didn’t they understand? —rustled and tore with his shaking grip. “Why did you help me with her? You hated her…”

“I didn’t know her,” Elle replied, her face an enigma. “And neither did you. What you did know of her… I don’t understand. I can’t pretend to understand why you’re doing _any_ of this. Me? I’m helping a friend. You? You’re grieving a stranger.”

Spencer looked down at his hand, at the eulogy he’d written but never gotten the nerve to read out, even to his audience of two.

“She’s not a stranger to me,” he said, more to the speech than to Elle. “She’s… me. She’s me, if I hadn’t found my way. She’s me, if Ethan and Aaron hadn’t showed me how to live.”

Elle was quiet. Spencer remembered: Elle worked with people like Clary, every day. She saw them forgotten, she saw them discarded. She rarely saw them grieved.

“Ethan wouldn’t have done this,” Elle said finally.

That was easy to answer, the easiest thing yet: “I’m not Ethan,” Spencer replied.

 

_Clarabelle Hart,_

_You see, I know your name now. I didn’t before. How strange it was that I only learned of it at the moment of your passing._

_I told you once that you would die. That the life you were living would be the end of you. Evidently, as I’m standing here at your side as we say goodbye, I was correct. I’ve never been more grieved to have been right._

_I wish it could have been different. I wish I could have shown you that._

_I don’t believe you were trapped. We all make progress, each of us, every day that we walk upon this earth. Maybe not much. Maybe nothing that another would consider to be progress, were they not walking within our shoes. In the time that I knew you, I saw you make progress as I made progress aside you. And, eventually, ahead of you._

_If only I could stand here and talk about the girl you were, the things you loved, the passions you cherished. I know none of them to speak of. The only thing I can speak of with surety is the impact you made upon my life._

_I stand alone, grieved that you are dead. This is a cruelty to you, I think, that so few gather to mourn your death. However, a kindness to me. You taught me how to fall, how to forget, how to become nothing. I learned those lessons well. I regret never returning to you once I’d unlearned those lessons in order to return the favour and remind you of what I myself have learned: there’s so much more than being nothing for us out there. There’s so much more than waiting to die._

_There’s so much more than chasing that death._

_You taught me how to chase that death, but you also taught me that I want to live._

_I’m sorry that you’re gone. I’m glad that I didn’t fall beside you._

_Thank you for showing me that._


	54. December, 2004

When it happened, it wasn’t a mistake. It was a betrayal.

But not a mistake.

Loneliness, Spencer would think after, was absolutely a compelling reason for recklessness. And he was lonely. So fucking lonely.

He passed academy training and he was alone.

He went home and he was alone.

He celebrated, alone.

Alone, until there was a knock on his door and he drunkenly swung it open to find Elle standing there with a smirk and a bag of cheap wines rattling together at her hip. “Heard you passed,” she said, and he swayed as she continued, “should have told me.”

“Why?” he said. He stepped back to let her in, dancing a little on the balls of his feet, sweeping his arm out to show her, hah, everything he was here to rejoice in. The apartment that was nicer than his one before, but empty, the lack of photos on the wall, the blankets on his couch, the wine bottle and a half already tipped up on the coffee table. “What’s to celebrate!”

But he laughed as he said it, and it hurt, and was lonely.

Elle was there. It was a betrayal. They were drunk. It wasn’t a mistake.

The first time they had sex, he didn’t regret it. It was good. It was a connection. She tasted like wine and cigarette smoke and the sharp bite of _her_. It started with a kiss; he initiated. She gave as good as she got.

Ethan was gone; they were all they had left of remembering.

It wasn’t lonely.

 

* * *

 

On Christmas Day, he woke up alone, two weeks from the date he was due to begin at the BAU under the tutelage of Jason Gideon, famed profiler. It wasn’t so bad. He turned on the TV and cooked himself breakfast with a dull sense of nostalgia for the children’s holiday movies playing and a warm sense of contentment about being comfortable inside while icy rain hammered his windows.

He read a book; he ate lunch; he stopped next door to give his neighbours his best wishes. They fed him pie and too much candy and their little girl gave him a pine-cone frosted with gold. It wasn’t the best Christmas ever, but he was sober, he was healthy, and he was moving forward.

Back home as the sun began to set on this one last holiday. He watched it from the fire escape with three blankets piled over his bathrobe and his feet icy even in their warm bed-socks. In his mittened hands, hot chocolate steamed. The rain had stopped and everything was wet, dripping loudly, frost forming on rain-soaked windows and walls.

He was lonely, a little. Across the street, a woman was smoking on her own fire escape, her apartment behind her dark and quiet. She waved at him, throwing her arms up in exaggerated mirth as a car rolled past blasting _Jingle Bell Rock_.

He waved back and laughed, before slipping back inside to warm back up. His cell was charging on the wall, switched off and forgotten in his determination to have a nice time, alone. He didn’t need the silent cell to remind him how forgotten he could be, with this new thing he’d found with Elle paused while she went home for the holidays and Ethan somewhere in New York, from his last message. Alone was _fine_.

Alone, except not really.

He turned his cell on and stared in shock as it began to hum.

**3+ missed calls: Mom**

**> Ethan: Merry Christmas, little buddy! The cat says MEOW and we found you a fanfuckingtastic present, you’ll fuckin love it. Let me know how u r. Thinkin of you from NYC.**

**> Simon: Merry Christmas, Spence. Hope you’re having a good one. Everyone here is doing well.**

**> Kate: Happy Holidays! Thinkin of everyone on this day : D**

**> Ethan: DRUNKE NOW. HAPPY FUCKING CHRSTMAS WHAT A CHRISTMAS**

**7+ missed calls: Ethan**

**> Ethan: YOV TURND YOUR PHONE OFF I FOUND APENGUIN**

**+MMS received: Ethan**

**> Ethan: PENGUIN**

Spencer stared at what was clearly a gigantic stuffed penguin on his best friend’s head, both wrapped liberally in tinsel, and then he began to laugh.

Alone, but not really.

Before he could reply, his cell began to ring: **Elle Calling**

He blinked, and then answered: “Hello?”

She sucked in a surprised breath on the other end, paused, said, “Hi… Spence,”, sounding uncertain of her welcome. “Thought I’d ring and see how your day was going.”

With a smile she couldn’t see, Spencer unplugged his cell, walking backwards to his couch and flopping back, readjusting the cell as he said, “Merry Christmas, Elle. It’s been… nice.”

“Nice,” she replied with a snort, “just nice?”

“Just nice,” he reaffirmed.

They talked for an hour and he fell asleep with his cell in his palm.


	55. March, 2005

The BAU was… interesting. He didn’t really fit in there, especially not standing next to Derek ‘muscles’ Morgan, but Spencer wasn’t surprised. He didn’t really fit in anywhere. Gideon liked him. Rossi tolerated him. JJ seemed to think he was sweet. The work was terrible, but challenging. He was good at it, mostly. When he didn’t have to speak to people.

The first time he saved a life, he was stunned. The jet ride home after was silent and he couldn’t think, couldn’t stop thinking.

“You alright?” asked Rossi, walking past with a coffee and pausing to look down at him. Everyone else was asleep. Spencer _couldn’t_ sleep. Someone was alive who wouldn’t be without him.

If he’d killed himself that night, today a woman would have died without him.

That was an impossible feeling to quantify.

But he couldn’t say any of this, so instead he said, “I made a difference today,” and winced at just how _shocked_ he sounded.

Rossi just smiled, a real smile. Gentle and soft and kind of amused, he followed it by saying: “Yeah, you did. And you’ll keep making a difference, kid. Welcome to the team.”

It was a feeling very much like being glad to be alive.

He welcomed it.

 

* * *

 

Elle worked sexual crimes; she knew the burn of success. He went home that night frantic with excitement he needed to share, calling her before he’d even unpacked and repacked his go-bag with fresh clothes. Still stiff from the jet, with the scent of hotel soap lingering on his skin, he called her and she answered immediately.

“I saved someone today,” he blurted out, then stopped and rethought that over. “Wait, that sounded…”

“Spence,” she said sharply. “Stop thinking. Don’t rethink that. You _saved_ someone, shit, that’s _big_. They won’t be your last, you know. This is the life you chose.”

“I know,” he murmured, almost to himself. “I know. I just…” She waited for him to catch up. Despite her edges, despite her temper, she knew when to push and when to hold. “Come over,” he finished with, kicking his go-bag against the cupboard as though that would tidy his living area adequately.

She did.

They were almost asleep in a lazy, sated mess of limbs and skin when there was a knock at the door. Spencer blinked awake, startled and uncomfortable now that he was conscious enough to realize how sticky he was. Elle twitched, her eyes flickering behind their lids; alert, but not worried. On the muted TV, a DVD menu was playing recursively.

The knock came again. Spencer rolled from the couch, made sure Elle was covered, grabbed his robe, called out, “In a sec.”

Opened the door.

“Boo!” yelled Ethan with a huge grin, throwing his arms out wide; “Surprise!”

At his feet, Specky meowed, circling with his leash wrapping around Ethan’s calves, a bag and instrument case leaning against the wall behind them both.

Spencer stared.

Ethan’s smile wavered.

“Surprise?” he tried again, raising his eyebrows. “Earth to Spencer, this is Ethan. Hello?”

“Eth,” Spencer said. “Eth?”

It clicked.

“Ethan!” he yelped, and launched himself at his friend with a yell, hugging his tight with a surge of _he’s here!_ The cat skittered out the way, detangling itself and bounding into Ethan’s apartment as Ethan let go of the leash to let him go.

“That’s better!” Ethan laughed as he caught him, lifting him almost with the force of his returned hug. “Man, your face, you’d think—”

There was a yowl and a yell from inside.

Spencer froze.

“What the fuck is this _cat…_ Ethan?!” Elle appeared, frazzled and with the blankets slung awkwardly around her, eyes huge and a red line of scratch-marks on her bare shoulder from where Speck had pounced on her. There was silence.

Ethan let go, stepping back, his smile vanishing.

The silence lengthened.

“Elle’s here,” Spencer said weakly.

Ethan nodded slowly. “Yeah,” he said, “I can… see. I’ll… give you guys a minute to get decent and I’ll… come back.”

And he walked away, leaving his bag and his cat behind.

“Ethan!” Elle called frantically, but he was gone. “Ah, fuck.”

“That could have gone better,” Spencer murmured. They should have told him.

They _should_ have told him.

Glumly, he brought Ethan’s bags in, rescued the cat from the couch where Elle had thrown him, and went to shower, before making a coffee and sitting down to wait for his friend to return. Elle raged and raged and raged, clearly working herself up to protect herself from what was coming back, but he felt nothing but… sad.

 

* * *

 

When Ethan came back, he was calm, which was better than Spencer and Elle, who were terrified.

“Stop looking at me like I’m going to rub your noses in it,” he said gruffly, taking a seat at the kitchen table with them and nudging the wonky leg with his toes. Specky lay in his lap, purring loudly. “Yeah, a warning would have been nice, but only because I’m your friend. If you’ve got a… thing… going, that’s something that you tell a friend, right?”

“Right,” Spencer said weakly.

“There’s no thing,” corrected Elle sharply. “We don’t have a thing. It’s…”

“Just sex.” Spencer winced as he said it, but it was true, right? “It’s just sex, Ethan. We didn’t think it was…”

“Important.” As Elle finished it off definitely, she looked startled. Thrown almost, her mouth turning down into a strange, hurt shape. Spencer hissed.

That hurt.

Why did that hurt?

And as he hurt, Elle looked at him, her own eyes wide, the same hurt showing there.

The weird moment broke, Ethan huffing out a broken laugh: “Well,” he said tiredly, “you know, I’m kinda pissed at myself. I haven’t got a right to who you sleep with, Elle, I haven’t for years. Whatever. Have fun. Don’t break each other.”

Elle looked at him. “Damnit,” she muttered, hunching in her chair, “and I was so ready to shout. Now who am I gonna yell at? When’d you go and get so mature, Coiro?”

Spencer wondered much the same.


	56. June, 2005

When it happened, it was a mistake.

“But we use protection,” Spencer protested.

Elle said nothing.

“We _always_ use protection,” Spencer said again.

Elle said nothing.

“Always,” he whispered.

And Elle said nothing, sitting in the shower in nothing but her jeans with her long legs folded up against her chest and looking stunned, shocked, hurt, frightened. On the basin, the test stared back at them accusingly, mockingly.

Spencer crouched next to her, remembering, suddenly, sitting in very much the same position one time. Remembering, suddenly, someone being there for him.

He pulled her close. She let him do it, stiffening in his arms like a cat about to lash out, trembling with anger or terror or something fraught between those two tenuous things. But he didn’t let go. She didn’t push him away.

“We can work through this,” he said firmly, and she crumpled into his chest, wrapping her arms around him, holding him tight and beginning to cry.

Never before had he seen Elle cry. Not once.

Not ever.

He had to fix this.

 

* * *

 

They booked an appointment for an abortion. They even drove there, sitting in the car together and saying nothing as the hours ticked on and on and on and on and on. They drove home—her home, because she needed comfort right now—still saying nothing, and Elle went straight to bed. Spencer amused himself around the house: washing the dishes, putting a load of laundry on for her, setting the slow cooker on so she had something to eat for dinner, fixing a wiggly lock on the bathroom door, before finally slinking into her room. It was dark and still, the air thick. The only signs of her were a lump in the bedding and the soft whisper of heaving breaths.

He watched her for a moment with his heart twisting in his chest before walking to the bed and kicking his shoes off, crawling in beside her and tucking her under his arm. She let him without conceding to his presence, making no move to acknowledge him.

“Do you want me to make another appointment?” he asked quietly.

“No,” came the muffled reply from under the blankets, before her head popped out and blinked blearily at him in the gloom, tear-streaked and with her hair tacky against her face. Her face looked swollen, red, absolutely hurting. He kissed her anyway, unsure of what else to do, only knowing that he was hurting because she was hurting. “I can’t, Spence. I can’t. I told my mom that I’m… I told her. She’s _so_ fucking angry, like I hurt her on purpose, like I did this to her. If I abort? God, Spence, that goes against everything she… I…” And she vanished back under the blankets to hide that she was crying again, as though he couldn’t feel her shaking shoulders or hear the way she was gasping for air.

He held her until she fell asleep, great, heaving sobs making way to a soft kind of sniffling before she went slack in his arms and he unfolded the blanket from her face, letting her breathe. Thinking.

He’d messed up before. This wasn’t the first time; it likely wouldn’t be the last. Except, this time, it wasn’t Ethan or Aaron he’d hurt—men who could and _would_ pick themselves up and move on from his destructive influence. Elle? She’d be fine without him, if he pushed her just the tiniest bit into doing something she was uncomfortable with and then left her in the aftermath. She’d hate him. She’d probably channel it all into a furious rage against everyone who was unfortunate enough to share a biological sex with him, but she would survive, thrive, move on. She was steady. He didn’t think anything could shake that.

But he didn’t want to do that. Didn’t think he could, not anymore.

As a boy, he would have run.

He wasn’t a boy anymore.

When she woke up, he was still there, still waiting, with a lecture pad on his knees.

“What’s this?” she asked groggily, accepting the cup of water he offered her, leaning on his side for a support she didn’t really need as she examined what he’d written.

“I had to infer a bit from your salary because I don’t really know your monetary position,” Spencer answered, tilting the pad the show her, “but I solved that by relying more heavily on my own funds. There are multiple options—one, we have the baby but continue to live separately, pooling resources for the child’s wellbeing; two, we have the baby but live together, pooling resources still only for the child’s wellbeing and general housekeeping; three, we have the baby and live together, pooling all resources; four, we have the baby but I take full custody, annulling you of all responsibility if that’s something you wish. All options require childcare, except four, so they also diverge at the point of who stays home for the child during the initial period—either option works, you or I, the only difference is—”

“You take full custody?” She sounded stunned. “Spence, what? You’d… what?”

He winced. “An abortion isn’t viable with your belief system,” he tried to explain, heart thudding and stomach sinking, “and… adoption isn’t viable with mine. I won’t give someone of my blood into the care of strangers. I won’t lock you into motherhood, that was never something we discussed or planned for, but if you carry this child to term, I want it. I can take care of it. I’m… prepared to do that.”

She stared at him, her brown eyes wide. Something strange slunk into her expression then, some soft-eyed look he hadn’t even seen on her before, not in a long time. He wiggled uncomfortably under that discerning gaze, thinking that perhaps she might have made a fantastic profiler, if she was ever inclined to do so.

“You know,” she said suddenly, eyes crinkling a little in an almost half-smile, “I’ve made worse mistakes before than you.”

He didn’t really know how to answer that.

 

* * *

 

Ethan was furious.

Spencer crumbled in that face of that.

Elle wasn’t here for this conversation, and that was the only thing Spencer was thankful for, because Ethan had a temper and Spencer was standing his ground and it was… painful.

“You can’t _do_ this!” Ethan raged, turning on his heel and staring at Spencer folding himself as small as he could go in the doorway of the kitchen. “Spence, what the fuck! Fucking her is one thing—a _baby_? You can’t even look after yourself without me wiping your ass for you!”

Spencer winced, a spark of anger igniting.

“You left,” he said coolly. “You left, Ethan, which is fine, whatever. It’s your life, live it. Don’t stop it for us—but don’t expect us to stop for you. We didn’t plan for a baby but a baby is coming. Nothing can change that. We may as well just be happy about it…”

Ethan stared, his chest rising and falling quickly, his eyes wild. “Happy?” he breathed, running his fingers through his hair. Longer now, tied back out of his face. “Happy, for what? Happy that you’re going to be a dad? Spence, I _want_ to be happy, okay, I want to, but with Elle? What’s this kid gonna have? Parents who don’t love each other and a—”

Spencer lurched up, anger flooding hot and fast: “And what?” he snarled, “An addict for a father?”

Doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past.

Silence. Ethan paled, but not in a way that suggested he was calming down. Instead, his expression was icy, his cheeks flushed red, his hands clenched tight.

“I’ve moved on,” Spencer continued coldly, “I’m not who I was when you were here. Maybe you’d see that if you bothered to look—I’m not a kid anymore.”

“No,” Ethan said, “you’re not. Look at you. All grown up and fucking women for no other reason than that you can. Good job, you. Good fucking job. Yeah, I can really see what kind of role model you’re going to be, I can see it now. What a lucky kid!” His voice cracked, snapped, and he seemed to choke on what he was saying: “I bet Elle’s real pleased with _you_.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Spencer was beyond being calm now, beyond responding moderately. “Is this about me, Ethan? Because it sure as hell can’t be about Elle… no one who knows her would ever imply that she _settles_. You want to call her up and tell her how much you _pity_ her for making her own choices?”

Ethan wasn’t answering, and Spencer turned mean, turned sharp, and Ethan didn’t really deserve it, not really.

That didn’t stop him.

“Is that it? You’re pissed that she didn’t sit and wait for you to come back from _finding yourself_? How come I’m the child here, Ethan? Why am I the irresponsible one? You’re thirty years old and still don’t know shit about who you are—at least I made my mistakes and moved on from them. You? You’ve never moved on. She’s not _yours_ to protect. She’s her own woman, she made her own choices, and we’re doing this together! You’re alone because you _chose_ to be. Get over yourself—we haven’t need you for years, and that didn’t change when she got pregnant, it hasn’t changed now that we’ve decided to keep it, and it _won’t_ change in the future, no matter what happens, okay? We break up, we stay together, we get married and live happily fucking ever after, none of it has to involve _you_!”

Ethan stared. Spencer stopped, struggling to breathe through the shaking, clawing anger, struggling to _think_. He wouldn’t be a terrible dad. He wouldn’t.

He _wouldn’t_.

Ethan was wrong.

“You get married?” Ethan asked slowly, his voice strange through the rushing in Spencer’s ears.

Spencer blinked. Had he said that? That wasn’t something they were ever considering. Why had he said that?

But Ethan was still talking, in a low, strained tone: “You get _married_ , is that it, Spence? You realise what this is, right? You’re grasping at this because it feels like being normal—it’s _bullshit_ , Spencer, you’re not doing this for her or for the kid—neither of you are doing it for the kid! You’re doing it because you’re both shit at being alone! Happy families? The hell do you know about happy families! Do this and you won’t be happy, none of you will be!” He stepped closer, his expression a stranger to Spencer, and finished what he’d started resolutely: “The day you marry her is the day I give up on you ever being a decent person.” He turned on his heel and strode out, without giving Spencer a chance to speak again. The slamming of the spare bedroom door behind him was damning.

The next day, he was gone.

He didn’t come back.

 

* * *

 

Elle arrived a week later.

“We’re having a son,” she said as soon as she walked in the door, crossing her arms and staring him down. “What are you going to do about it?”

And Spencer answered: “You should move in.”


	57. Interlude

**August, 2005**

It was evident that something was wrong the moment he walked into the bullpen and Elle was standing by his desk. It was evident, not only from the greenish hue to her face and the way her arms were crossed around her still-flat belly, but also from the way she was holding herself: there was terror in her posture. She was standing the way she’d stood the day she’d realised that she was pregnant. The room was silent but loud, a cluster of agents staring up at the scrolling news ticker on the overhead screen, their eyes collectively wide.

The team, exhausted after a seven-hour flight across the country and with no idea what was happening, joined that cluster, as did Spencer. Elle moved up beside him.

“The levees failed,” Elle said. It took far too long for Spencer to realise what he was looking at: on the news screen, it wasn’t a canal depicted. It wasn’t some far away country. It was New Orleans, and it was underwater, the hurricane slamming through with utterly no mercy. “Where’s Ethan? His… his family live on the river…”

“I don’t know,” Spencer admitted, his cell phone in his pocket and damningly silent. On the screen, there was a red line of text: _Death toll rising._ “I’ll call him.”

But he didn’t answer.

 

* * *

 

The body in front of him was tall, slender. Possibly slender, once the destruction a week’s length of submersion was subtracted from the bloated body. The hair had once been brown, dark or light, possibly. Maybe blonde, now decayed. The mask over Spencer’s mouth and nose, daubed with oils to assist with just this, did very little to hide the smell. And it wasn’t just in this room, lined with the bodies of New Orleans’ dead. It was everywhere. Every street smelled of rot. The water putrefied in stagnant pools within houses and stores and businesses where the river had yet to recede. The body in front of him was male. But there was no stupid tattoo on what was visible of the distended ankle, no winged tuba gotten some four years prior with Spencer holding his hand and trying not to laugh at the tattooist’s face.

It wasn’t Ethan.

Turning his back, Spencer shook his head and walked away. He was lucky. Others around him weren’t. The room wasn’t empty. Families searched for their loved ones, just as Spencer did his, and some of them had found them.

This wasn’t the first makeshift morgue he’d searched.

Between morgues, he helped where he could. There was little he could do. The flow of refugees lining those areas of New Orleans that were still dry kept him busy, searching endlessly for a familiar face, perhaps with his cat upon his shoulder, perhaps with his keyboard on his knee. And, in Spencer’s pocket, his cell phone stayed silent.

He managed to find a rowboat with room for one more, searching for survivors among the wreckage. They saw bodies, human and animal. They saw destruction. What they didn’t see was life. At Spencer’s request, once they’d exhausted their reserves for the day, they rowed home via the wooded inlet where _Pantoufles_ was tucked away. Had been tucked away. If the house remained, of it there was no sign. Katrina had plucked away the bank where she’d stood like a chef carving meat, and the flat, murky water showed no sign of where Ethan had grown up except for scattered chunks of furniture still tangled in the tips of trees and a single sheet caught on a power line.

Three weeks after the hurricane dispersed and left behind only death, there was still no sign of Ethan Coiro.

“Anything?” Elle asked when the weekend was over and he was required to return home to work. She stood in the living room of the apartment they now shared, in nothing but her underwear and a man’s shirt he didn’t recognise. Hair unbrushed and face pale, dark shadows cutting deep lines under her swollen eyes. Around her feet, the floor was littered with phonebooks, clippings, her laptop. Newspapers and a stack of _Have you seen me_ with Ethan’s face framed neatly on the page, ready to join the multitudinous number of those posters already hanging within the refugee camps and relief stations of New Orleans.

“Nothing,” Spencer replied numbly.

They’d found nothing.

 

* * *

 

They found something.

Almost a month after, Spencer’s phone rang. “Hey, Speck,” said Fiona, and Spencer almost cried from the relief of it. Despite his adamant belief that Elle should be nowhere near the rot and bacteria-ridden waters of the flooded Orleans, they flew there together to find Ethan’s family.

Fiona and Josh were alone, housed in camp beds in a warehouse on high ground. The room, despite the size, stunk of too many humans, not enough waste receptacles, not enough space. Elle was silent by Spencer’s side, huddled to him like she was scared of what they’d find. It was obscene, to see her so cowed when normally she was fierce, but the death of Ethan haunted him too.

“He’s alive,” Fiona told them. They walked together outside. Josh wore a pink coat, bunnies across the back, and his pants were too tight. He slouched in Fi’s arms, flushed pink and dangerously limp. Spencer teased a lock of hair from his eyes with one finger and winced at how warm he was. “Ethan, that is. We were supposed to be evacuated when it turned out I couldn’t move Gram on my own, but no one showed up and, well, then the storm hit. Ethan showed up. Got us out. Then Gram got sick and people were drowning and we couldn’t go with her—there wasn’t any room for relatives on the med-evac.”

“Is she okay?” Spencer asked, numbness coursing through him. The air stunk. He felt sick. It didn’t feel like his country, this broken, helpless place, even as he watched men in military uniforms help pass out relief supplies to a straggled line of refugees.

“Gram?” Fi shifted Josh to her other hip, her expression bland. Then back to her original hip, her arms sagging a little. Exhausted. Without a word, Elle held her arms out and took the boy from her, hugging him close. Something tight and warm deep in Spencer’s chest, located somewhere near his aching heart, watched Elle hold the child and loved, just a little. “She died. They told us. Told us they’d take us to see her. Then we got moved because of over-crowding. Ethan went to find her… that was weeks ago. He never came back. Such a _shit_ of a brother, I swear…”

The sniff that came from her was wet, but she wasn’t crying. Probably couldn’t cry anymore.

But Ethan was alive.

“Your parents?” Spencer said finally, looking at Elle to find her staring at him intently, her fingers locked tight around Josh’s back.

“No idea. Probably don’t even know what’s happening. They won’t answer me when I call them, anyway.”

Elle finally spoke, “Come with us,” she said. “We have a spare room. You can’t stay here.”

If Fiona was too proud once to take handouts, she wasn’t any longer. “Thank you,” was all she said, taking her son back. They left that place together, leaving behind nothing but the wreckage of her home and the posters with her brother’s face on it.

 

**November, 2005**

In November, their search for Ethan was derailed by a train that Elle almost died on. Something clicked in Spencer’s brain that day. Something integral. It wasn’t like the moment that it had clicked for him and Aaron, not at all. The moment it had clicked with him and Aaron, all those years ago in Rhosgobel, it had been sweet and tentative and deliciously new. With Elle, it was fearful and dangerous and broken by the ringing in Spencer’s ears of the gun that had gone off, so close to her and the child she carried.

It ended well enough, with no one he couldn’t lose dead and a severe dressing down from Rossi and Gideon after it had come out that Agent Elle Greenaway from White Collar Crime wasn’t just an FBI agent in peril—his stance when he’d demanded to be allowed on the train to extract her—but was also his, what? Roommate? Partner? Girlfriend? None of those described them adequately, although he suspected they were perfectly descriptive for Rossi when the details of Elle’s condition filtered down to him as well.

“You should have told us,” he said furiously, Gideon lurking somewhere behind them in the recesses of Rossi’s office. “Shit, Reid. Your girlfriend and kid? You should not have been on that train! I didn’t even know you _had_ a kid coming!”

“What she is to me had no influence on how I behaved on that train,” Spencer replied quietly. And it hadn’t. He’d acted professionally and within the boundaries of his training, in order to extract as many hostages as possible with as few losses as possible. In that, he had been successful. “If anything, our intimate knowledge of each other allowed us to work with each other—I couldn’t have done what I did with any other agent on board.”

Rossi surveyed him with a grim expression. “And if she’d been killed? Could you have remained so objective? Reid, you broke every rule—”

“I did my job.” Spencer didn’t let his gaze waver. Outside, Elle was waiting to go home after being cleared by the medical personnel on site. She could have left already, but she seemed adamant that she was going to stay and wait for him, to bear whatever punishment his bosses deemed sufficient for the information he’d concealed from them. “And I did it well. Everything else is just… semantics.”

“Semantics.” Rossi snorted, tilting his chair back with his knee cocked up jauntily. “Kid, I don’t know that woman out there, but I don’t recommend telling her that she’s semantics.”

It seemed, Spencer realised in that moment, that, somehow, he wasn’t being penalised for this.

“Reid.” Gideon had followed him from the office following his dismissal. Spencer paused, eyes already searching for the slim form of Elle somewhere in the office, thinking dismally of home and his bathrobe and a bowl of soggy cereal in front of the TV. _Doctor Who,_ since it was his turn to pick and because Elle was secretly fond. “Congratulations.”

Startled, Spencer looked at him. “For what?”

And Gideon replied, “On that,” and nodded to Elle waiting. “A child is exciting. You must be excited.”

Spencer thought about that for a moment. “There’s more to be excited about than the child she carries,” he replied finally, almost realising himself. “But, thank you.”

After all, he didn’t feel much like a father yet, he knew he wasn’t much of a friend, and it was occurring to him that he hadn’t given her anything a partner would yet either. If she’d died today, and she could have, she would have died as the ‘almost something’ on the sideline of his life, and that wasn’t somewhere someone like her deserved to be regulated to.

He decided to do better.

 

* * *

 

They were home. The TV rambled on, the volume set low and subtitles on with both of them preferring the quiet, and Spencer cooked a meal that was hasty and probably slightly too spiced for taste. Seated together, knees bumping and quiet except for the scrape of fork on plate, he said, “Come out with me on the weekend.”

She looked at him, something sharp returning to her gaze that was familiar but distant, a slow return of the Elle of old replacing the tired, saddened ghost who’d quietly moved into his apartment while he hadn’t been looking. “I almost got my ass shot and you respond by dragging me out to, what?” she grumbled, picking at the gluggy rice with the side of her fork. “A _date_?” She said it like a joke, her voice thin.

“Yes,” he replied, watching her tense. “I’m asking you on a date.” Setting the plate aside, he let the couch shift them closer, slipping his arm around her but letting her make the move to snuggle closer, wincing at the bruises under her eyes. “You’re more to me than someone I—”

“Knocked up?”

“... yes.” Bluntly put, but yes. “That’s not who you are to me. I’ve been thoughtless… I want to show you how I feel.”

Those eyes narrowed, cutting him deep as they took him apart and found him wanting. “How do you feel?”

When he kissed her, she tasted of the over-spiced meal, slightly rigid in his arms. Reminded, painfully, one moment of how she’d cried when she’d discovered the child and the next moment fleetingly remembering how sweet this had been with Aaron, he hated himself for how little he gave her. “Like we can do better,” he said firmly, leaning his chin on her head and wincing as his gaze drifted to the fresh stack of _Have you seen me_ posters ready to replace those already up. “Like I miss who we were before we rushed being more. You teaching me hand to hand…”

“You being crap at it.” Elle was smirking, tipping her head back and examining him for a heartbeat before kissing him quickly. It still felt distant. They’d been better than this, those lonely months after his graduation when they’d found each other miserable and made each other more. They’d had more than this. Then, somehow, they’d lost it. Spencer wanted it back. “Fine. A date this weekend, wherever you choose to take us. But I get next weekend, once you get back from Orleans, and we’re staying home.”

“Oh?” He was intrigued.

“You’re not the only one who needs to do better. Fiona and Josh are leaving next week to the housing they’ve been allotted—I have a bucket of glow in the dark paint and a fierce desire to turn the ceiling in the spare room into something ridiculously science-y. What do you think, stars or something more eclectic?”

Spencer’s heart beat slow in this moment, and it clicked again. Not much. Not as much as he’d felt before.

But a beginning.

“I think Ethan would be mad if we didn’t make it musical,” he replied, and hoped that, one day, they’d be able to test this theory.

The date went terribly. They fought for half of it and spent the other half in guilty misery after walking past a panhandler that looked frighteningly like Ethan. Instead of anything kinder, they went home to be alone.

But, they still tried again the week after.

 

**December, 2005**

They received a letter with no return address, containing one of their missing posters and a single scrawled note.

_I’m alive. Stop looking for me. I want to be alone. – E_

Spencer spent the night at his desk, picking apart the wayward parts of his life and seeing every wrong path he’d taken, every one of them leading to this moment, or the moments previously when he’d failed his friend.

“This isn’t about you, or us,” Elle tried to tell him. Spencer wasn’t sure he believed her. “Not everything in his world revolves around us.”

Maybe that was true, but it still felt like they were failing him.

He didn’t write a reply that night. He didn’t know yet what to say. But he knew; a reply would be needed eventually, made out to one of the people he’d hurt the most.

**February, 2006**

When their son was born, it was a brilliant moment for Spencer. Brilliant in every sense of the word: intense, dazzling, and nauseatingly illuminating. Holding his hours old son, for Spencer Reid, was like bringing the brightest possible light source into his life and shining it right into the very darkest parts of him. In his tiny fingers and perfectly formed lips was every mistake Spencer had made over his life, everything he’d ever done—both positive and negative. His son in his arms, Spencer stared and stared and stared and stared and couldn’t think beyond the insanity of all the paths that had led to this.

Rhosgobel had led to this. Aaron had led to this. Connors had led to this. Ethan had led to this.

And then, the baby sneezed. Such a strange, loud noise from such a tiny little chest, his cheeks blowing out in surprise as he huffed and waggled his tongue curiously. Eyes—they were blue, but they likely wouldn’t stay that way, Spencer knew—narrowed as he snuffled up at his dad, before letting loose the smallest yowl of complaints.

“Noisy,” Elle complained sleepily, startling awake. “What a noisy thing…” She slurred, still exhausted, almost drifting away again. And Spencer noticed: their eyes were the same shape.

Not just his paths leading to this moment, but Elle’s too.

Click, went the something.

“We made a child,” he said out loud to no one in particular, his arms aching and his heart hurting and his whole brain tangled up in this stop-motion moment. Ignoring Elle’s, _no shit, Spencer,_ as he closed his eyes and saw, bizarrely, a boy in a navy-blue polo. But, when the boy turned in his mind, the eyes were all Elle. Her mistakes and her flaws and her strengths, spiralled up tightly with his own in the helix-shaped gift they’d passed on to another person. “Oh god, _we_ made a child.”

Now, Elle was staring at him. “Bit late too back out,” she teased, but her heart wasn’t in it and he stood and made his shaky way over to her, aware to be careful but needing to see their baby with her, with them, with—anything to make sense of this.

“We need to do better,” he realised out loud, shaking now. Because he was thinking of that boy in his mind and the memory of a boy just like him, and he was looking at _this_ child and realising that he’d die before he’d see their son walk the same path he had: alone and unprotected and straight into destruction. “We can’t mess this up.”

“Every parent messes up,” Elle replied. “We won’t be perfect, Spence, not even close.” On the bedside cupboard, the phone rung shrilly. Their hours of solitude were up: family was arriving. Elle’s, who didn’t like Spencer and weren’t shy about showing it, and Diana, once Spencer went to collect her from their apartment where she was patiently waiting. But not Ethan. Probably never Ethan again. And that hurt.

But Spencer looked at his son, and he knew something else that day: they could do better.

They named him Jackson and never talked about why.

 

**April, 2006**

Those first few months of having a child were electrifying. Sometimes, Spence would use his insomnia to walk around with their fretful infant, soothing him so Elle could sleep. Not a single moment was begrudged; Jack, Spencer was sure, deserved every minute of Spencer’s attention and more. He talked to him. The names of the stars they could have seen from the apartment windows, if not for the light pollution of DC. The stories of the books that lined their homes. The tunes that each of the glow in the dark splashes of paint in the ceiling of Jack’s nursery spelled out. Sometimes, Elle joined him, even when she was over-tired and cranky with it.

“Why are you awake?” he asked her once, turning and finding her watching him whisper to Jack about the infinite reaches of space, her knees on the couch and arms on the backrest, chin resting atop them. “Sleep now before I leave for work.”

“Don’t tell me what to do,” she teased back, but there was a look on her face that Spencer would see later, on his own. It was a heady feeling, to look back at this instant and that expression and realise that Elle was the first to give in to the electric feeling of seeing the person you were raising a child with holding that child. And strange: to think that someone as headstrong and solitary as Elle fell in love with him as he padded about a cramped apartment in nothing but a bathrobe, telling a newborn that space would be the frontier his generation would explore.

It was sometime this month that the same moment happened to him.

The window was open. The breeze that flickered in tugged at the curtains, throwing snippets of light onto the creamy walls. The digital clock-face on the cupboard beside Elle’s side of the bed read: 03:42. Elle was asleep; Jack beside her.

And Spencer looked at her and felt the small feeling he’d had a glimpse of months ago tease a little more. It was probably a mistake, letting this happen, but some would tell them that it had been a mistake having Jack in the first place. But here he was, fast asleep, and he was perfect. Spencer looked at his son and at Elle’s arm around him, and he loved this moment and the people in it completely. If Elle had been awake, he’d have told her this.

If there was any previous memory in his life to compare it to, he’d have thought of a Redskin’s towel hanging from a window in a teenage boy’s bedroom and two barely-grown boys wondering what life held in store for them. Their fingers barely touching and their hearts beating rapidly. The very first brush of falling in love. But that was then, and this was now, and Spencer could be glad that even mistakes led to good things, even as he missed everyone he’d lost to reach this point.


	58. May, 2006

It had gone wrong so fast that Spencer was left reeling. Reeling, while sitting in a blank-walled hospital waiting room with Jack in his arms and Elle, dying. There was blood on his arms. On his hands. On Jack. Spencer looked down and saw his son screaming soundlessly, his blue jumpsuit patterned red. A green dinosaur roared on his belly, brown splashes obscuring his stitched-on tail. His mother’s blood. Elle’s blood.

Elle, dying.

Someone touched his shoulder, shook him a little. Spencer looked up. Stared. Hated. Gideon. Gideon’s fault. His fault too. They’d argued about this: about the danger of Spencer’s work following him home. And so it had. So it had. There were rules to everything and Spencer had forgotten the most important: if you love it, it will be taken away. Just like Aaron. Just like Rhosgobel. Just like the boy who’d not only known the beetle’s name, but also dared to hope that a kind man was nothing more than a kind man. Nothing less.

Gideon went to take Jack, and suddenly Spencer was aware that Jack was still screaming, had been screaming since his dad had slammed into the apartment— _FBI! Elle, where are you? —_ with his gun drawn and voice cracking, slipping over on the unexpected blood and slamming into the ground next to where Elle was bleeding. Had probably been screaming before that, when the murderous bastard—Spencer refused to allow him a name because he’d almost _killed_ Elle—had come in through the window like the ghost of Connors and once again ripped Spencer’s life apart right down the middle. And all because Gideon couldn’t follow rules. All because Spencer couldn’t walk away from the job that made him feel alive. And now Jack was going to lose his mother.

“Don’t touch him,” he said, only realising he’d snarled it when JJ reached for him. “Leave us alone!”

But Jack was screaming and Spencer was crying and Elle was dying, and it was all his fault.

There were rules.

And they’d broken them.

 

* * *

 

There was only so much of the quiet murmuring of Elle’s mother that he could handle without losing every last one of his fractured nerves so, to his shame, Spencer found that he was increasingly avoiding the silent ICU room where Elle lay motionless, her life reduced to an array of flickering monitors and a single medical chart on a beige-white clipboard. If Evelyn wasn’t praying in a soft, frantic whisper, she was talking to him or to Jack. Of the three, if he couldn’t have her telling Jack stories about Elle as a child—an unlikely image to his brain, but one that he found increasingly fascinating over those miserable four days—he’d have rathered the praying. At least then she wasn’t making snide comments about their failure to have their now three-month-old son baptized yet— _if_ the Church would even accept their request, seeing as they were _unmarried_ and he was an _atheist_ , with the inflection in her voice on all the necessary words. Leaving him in no doubt that the sin she saw on her daughter’s shoulders was entirely due to him. Worry for her daughter aside, it was clear that Evelyn Greenaway expected nothing less of him than what he was doing, except, perhaps, his unavoidable abandonment of her daughter and grandson.

“Why weren’t you there to stop this happening?” she asked on the day he decided he’d rather be miserable at home. Elle was in a medical coma; he was giving her nothing by staying patiently by her side except giving Evelyn the rope to hang him with and making Jack extra fretful for when she woke up. So, he went home and did nothing but walk around the apartment, Jack in his arms whimpering away, the door firmly closed on the blood-splattered nursery. He couldn’t deal with it yet. Maybe never. Maybe they’d just never open that door again. If Elle died, he decided, they wouldn’t. They’d pack up and go, just him and his son, and find their own Rhosgobel. Maybe he’d go to Ethan, begging for forgiveness. None would be found there, he knew, not after murdering the woman Ethan had once loved. Maybe he’d go looking for Aaron and beg for, what? Not another chance. He didn’t deserve that. But some kind of something better for the son he needed to be happy. If anyone could offer a childhood filled with only the brightest parts of Spencer’s, it would be the boy who had made his childhood glorious. Maybe together they could remake those days for Jack.

Would Elle have played with them, he wondered, if she’d met them as a child? Would a smaller Elle, all scabby knees and messy hair and her stunning eyes—would she have helped them build a fort on the edge of a lonely quarry? Would she have been as lonely as them?

He thought that she might have been.

“When your mom wakes up, we’ll make our own place,” he promised Jack as he changed him in the living room where he and the baby were sleeping. “Not Rhosgobel—that’s mine and Aaron’s. But somewhere just as safe, just as hidden. Somewhere only we know.”

Despite his loneliness—he was off from work until they knew if Elle was going to survive, and screening all his calls for much the same reason—and despite the argument him and Ethan had had before Ethan had vanished, Spencer was finding that he wasn’t only capable of caring for his son; he excelled at it. With the loss of the other half of their equation lingering, Jack was still fed, changed, and relatively happy.

Spencer, on the other hand, was exhausted, his days devolving into a senseless run-on of timeless misery, never too far away from the nervous shakes that made it hard to hold his child, wishing Elle was there to hold him steady. Because he’d never felt like this when she was there—never. Despite her restless anger about taking time from work to care for their child, something he knew he’d _fix_ if he was given the chance because he’d been selfish in insisting she take that hit to her career, she’d always been steady and supportive. Maybe not in his decision to leave her home; in that, she’d fought him bitterly, but he’d been so wrapped up in the puzzle, the glory. The feeling of helping people, like he’d once been helped, and he’d—

He’d done this.

On this day, Elle had been in a coma for three days following an infection in the bullet wound that had almost taken her life, and Spencer opened the nursery door. He stood unspeaking in the doorway, picturing exactly where Randall Garner—dead now, as a text from Rossi had informed him, and Spencer was _glad_ —would have entered. Here, he would have stood with his gun; there, Jack had been laying vulnerable in his crib. And here… here Spencer looked down at the pool of blood where Elle had lain dying, until Spencer had arrived belatedly to save her life.

And, on the wall written in the blood of the woman he’d failed, _RULES_ in a dripping brown and an unfamiliar hand.

He closed the door, returned to the living room, and huddled on the couch waiting for the hospital to call, closed off from the world and sure he was alone.

There came a knock. Spencer opened the door.

Ethan walked back into their lives, painfully skinny with hollow cheeks barely hidden by an uncharacteristic beard, his clothes over-worn and dirty, and with his hair cut viciously short. He didn’t look like Ethan, not even a little, with a backpack on one shoulder, a blank expression in his eyes, and no cat by his feet. Spencer clung to the door for whatever support it could offer him, unsure of how to talk to this bearded stranger, aware that he barely looked any better despite being cleaner and more well-fed.

“Ethan,” he rasped, and felt a shudder work its way from his shoulders to his feet, setting him stumbling back into the apartment moments before Jack began to cry in his makeshift bed on the living room floor. The bedroom smelled of Elle. The nursery was coated in her blood. This was their sanctuary. And Ethan was here, watching him warily, judging him, seeing the wreck he’d made of their lives. _You were right,_ he wanted to cry, or maybe even, _She’s dying,_ or, _Please help me,_ but, instead, like the child he’d never ceased to be, he began to cry along with his screaming son.

And Ethan stepped forward, pulled him close, and held him like no time at all had passed between them.

 

* * *

 

He didn’t remember going to sleep. He remembered being guided to the couch, set down, someone speaking to him, and then he remembered nothing.

When he woke, it had been sixteen hours since the knock at his door and Jack was still in his bed. Spencer rolled onto the floor, crawling to his son with a headache slamming in his temple and guilt making him dizzy, finding him content, changed, and asleep. Dressed in different clothes that he’d been in before.

There was a clatter from the bedrooms. Spencer went tiredly and warily, some vague memory asserting itself that there was no threat even as his brain snarled and screamed _danger,_ his home no longer as safe as it had once been. Even in his confusion, he glanced at the answering machine on his way past. No messages. No Elle.

But Ethan was still there. Spencer found the nursery door wide open and bile collected in the back of his mouth at the sight, until he took that horrendous last step forward and peered in. And there Ethan was, on his knees with his sleeves rolled up, a bucket of soapy water by his side and scrubbing the blood-splattered floor. The wall with the red-splashed _RULES_ was soapy as well, smeared where it had been wiped until brown trickled down it to collect on the towels thrown underneath.

“I wasn’t here,” said Spencer blankly. Ethan’s head snapped up, settling back into a squat when he saw Spencer standing there, his mouth opening to cut him off. But Spencer needed to say this. He needed to keep going. “I didn’t even know he was coming after me, after her, until she didn’t answer her phone. We didn’t realise. We didn’t think. And we didn’t… we didn’t stop him…”

“Is she dead?” asked Ethan. There was nothing in his voice. No anger, no judgement, no emotion. No recrimination or salvation; he’d brought nothing into this home but an attempt to clean it of the horror within.

“No. Medical coma. They’re supposed to bring her out…” Spencer looked for a watch that wasn’t there, and then for a clock they didn’t own. “…tomorrow? Today? I can’t think…”

Ethan stood slowly, his knees popping with the haggard motion. Like a man twice his age, his shoulders were stooped and his eyes shadowed. “Okay,” he said simply. “Go shower and dress and pack whatever Jack needs. We’re going to the hospital.”

And Spencer so desperately needed someone to lean on, so all he said was, “Okay,” and he didn’t even ask how Ethan had known to come. Somehow, him just knowing made sense.

When he emerged dressed and clean, it was to Jack sitting in his high chair with a bowl of heated mush in front of him and Ethan rinsing the sink of his rough attempt at shaving using nothing but hot water and a hand-mirror propped against the faucet. Beardless, he still looked strange. If possible, worse than he had. When he saw Spencer, he smiled thinly and sidled past, vanishing into the bathroom. There was a distance between them that was at odds with the casual way he treated their home as his own; the distance felt wrong in a way that the being at home here didn’t, and Spencer didn’t know how to reach a comfortable medium between the two. So, he didn’t try. Simply sat down with Jack and fed him without making too much of a mess of them both until Ethan returned, showered and shaved much more effectively, a towel around his waist and his expression discomforted.

“I’ll find you something to wear,” Spencer said, realising his conundrum. Wondering dully if Ethan was making an effort because this moment for him was a return to a life he’d given up on while he was missing, or if it was purely because he couldn’t imagine stepping back into Elle’s life looking how he did right now. Whatever the reason, Spencer wanted—needed—to see something familiar in his eyes. Anything familiar. And the Ethan of Spencer’s life up until this moment had always dressed nicely, finicky about his cleanliness.

And all that was said in reply was, “Thanks.”

As strangers, they readied themselves for the coming day, and as strangers they drove to the hospital to wait for their shared friend to come back to life as well.

And Elle woke up. Not enough to recognise any of them: not Ethan sitting outside with Jack on his knee or Spencer hovering by the door like an outsider looking in or her mother who clutched at her hand and did nothing but cry, but enough for Spencer. Those brown eyes opened, the ones that Jack shared, and he walked back to Ethan with his heart still beating.

Ethan looked up at him, something sparking to life in his face as well. “She’s alive,” Spencer told him, waiting for a smile that never came. All he got in return was Ethan hugging Jack to his chest, brushing his lips against the child’s soft hair, and a single, cautious nod.

But it was a start.


	59. Ethan Coiro

**June, 2006**

Getting Elle home was a relief for them all, not least Jack who’d absolutely been aware that someone who should have been there hadn’t been. It was also hard, every step of the way. She hobbled instead of walked, couldn’t reach or bend, and was in pain from the minute she woke up to the moment she managed to slip back into a restless sleep. Her milk had stopped and she was furious that someone had taken her ability to feed her son away from her, no matter how often Spencer tried to reiterate that formula was a valid option. The first time she tried to pick Jack up, she tore the wound open and ended up back in the hospital again, raging and snarling the entire time at whatever target made itself available—usually Spencer, occasionally Ethan.

Ethan’s arrival hadn’t exactly gone unnoticed. “You fucker,” she’d greeted him with, before bursting into tears and then cussing him out for making her cry. The painkillers she was on were vicious, flinging her wildly from one mood to another as her temper sparked and ignited, and Spencer wished her mother would leave and stop aggravating every mood.

“Shut up, stop bitching,” Ethan said easily, the smile that Spencer had been waiting for slipping onto his face. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

“Staying?” Elle demanded, reaching out. Spencer thought for a second that she was reaching for Ethan and the move was natural enough that he didn’t think twice about it, until it was his hand she grabbed in a clammy, weak grip and hung onto grimly, pulling him closer. “Is he staying, Spence?”

“If he wants,” Spencer replied quietly, a little startled by the outward show of affection, right as she tugged him into a kiss that was damp and breathy. There was a frantic look to her eyes when she let go, her attention solely on him, and he couldn’t help but pull her close and hold her, gently, scared of hurting her and scared of letting go in case she drifted away from him.

“I’ll stay,” said Ethan softly from behind them but, when Spencer looked around for him, he’d wandered out of the room. He came back, though.

Evelyn was a nightmare of poking and prodding at Spencer, with Elle uncharacteristically silent in the face of her mother’s pushiness, until Ethan said snippily, “How about you stop making this harder for them, or fuck off?”

After that, the room was quieter, although much more awkward.

Home again, and it went easier this time. Four hands to help steady her, four hands to help with Jack. The first night she slept home, Spencer was too scared to sleep in the bed next to her in case he hurt her in his sleep—she was so furious at him for his care that she shouted until she was physically ill and left curled up on the bathroom floor cursing the body that was betraying her.

The next night, he stayed by her side and refused to sleep, watching her carefully for any sign of strain on her pallid face. By the time she woke, he was exhausted, with everything in his body screaming for rest. Expecting fury, she did nothing but roll over with finite care and study him and the signs of his fatigue that she knew from memory by now.

“Please sleep,” she said, reaching up to curl her hand around his cheek and wincing as it tugged at her abdomen. “I hate seeing you like this. I’m _alive,_ Spencer—I’m alive and so is Ethan and isn’t that everything we’ve been worried about?”

“I let you down,” he told her sadly. “I let this happen.”

“Bullshit.” Her voice was terse, wiggling closer to him and hissing as it hurt. He closed the gap between them so she didn’t have to, pulling her tight and pressing his mouth to the thin fabric between him and her heart. “Rossi came to see me. I’ve had the full breakdown—he even let me read the redacted case notes. Spence, Garner, that _fuck_ , didn’t hold up a sign saying, ‘I’m going to hurt your family’. He didn’t warn you that this was going to happen—he just did it. The guy was nuts. You couldn’t have predicted this.”

“I should have… he could have killed Jack.”

“You’re not infallible.” He felt her heart speed up, her voice softening. “Do you know what I dreamed of? When I was hurt… it was like, one moment I was in the nursery watching him hold a gun on me—so sure that he was going to kill my son and helpless to stop him—the next… the next I was a child again.”

He froze, remembering thinking of a girl joining him in Rhosgobel and the promises he’d made while she was unconscious. But, she was still talking.

“I dreamed of how much I loved my dad and how safe and at home I felt when he and mom were together… and then he was gone. And I lived it _again_ , Spence, all of it. Memories I thought I’d forgotten.” Against his hair, her cheek was damp despite how strong her voice had remained. “And then the dream changed and I was still at a funeral, still staring down a row of law enforcement saluting the dead, the same coffin with the same fucking flag, except—”

“It was yours,” Spencer said, vividly picturing that and feeling like his heart might twist out of his chest at the thought.

“No.” Elle shivered and he felt it. “It was yours.”

He whispered, “Elle…” but she wouldn’t stop.

“I did it all again except I wasn’t a child, I was my _mom_ , and I was raising a kid on my own and it hurt so so so fucking much, do you know that? Do you know how scared I am of you dying? How easily it could happen?”

“It won’t.” He was mulish about this, determined. There was no way he’d leave behind his family.

But, then again, they were never really given a choice, were they?

“I want Jack to feel safe,” she was saying, her heart still rapidly beating a frantic tattoo against his mouth. “Spence, I want him to have the home my parents gave me before… before Dad died. I don’t want what we have now—” He flinched away from the pain those words brought, but she wasn’t done: “—I don’t want this tentative thing we have that never progresses to more. Fuck, Ethan wasn’t _wrong_ —I want normality and stability and something good that we’ve picked out of the fucking ashes of our bullshit lives. No one thinks that I’m here because I love you—not even you. And that’s wrong. Do you know why I dreamed of your death when I was dying?”

He shook his head, confused and scared and still so, so tired.

“Because I love you, Spence, I didn’t realise that and I didn’t know how to realise that—it’s not the same as how I felt about Ethan so I didn’t think it was as valid. But that’s wrong. It _is_ valid. I don’t love you in the way I loved a jazzy weirdo when you met me, and I don’t love you in the way I’ve loved anyone who came before him. But that doesn’t change how I feel and it doesn’t change how fucking _terrified_ I am of losing you. When I looked at that coffin, I knew I loved you and I knew I would never, even have the chance to tell you that, and in that moment, I wished it was me dead.”

She fell silent, breathing fast and shallowly, and when he inched back to look up at her face, she was sweating, her skin greying out. Pain was creeping back into her intent expression.

“I love you too,” he said simply. “You’re the mother of my child and, beyond that, you know me more intimately than anyone, except Ethan.”

“Or Aaron,” she murmured, but he couldn’t and wouldn’t respond to that. But she continued stunning him, and asked as casually as if it didn’t change anything, “Would you marry me if I asked you to? Not because my mom thinks you’re ruining me by not—but because I want to. For whatever reason, I want this.”

“I don’t know,” he said honestly, his entire world off-kilter.

She managed, “Would you consider it?”

And he nodded.

 

* * *

 

It was two weeks later that he responded. They were lying in bed together. It was late afternoon and he’d gone back to work the previous week, finding it impossible to get back into the swing of things with the knowledge of Elle’s injury lingering.

Anything he could give her to make up for the pain he’d caused, he’d give it. For as long as he was able.

Jack lay between them, fast asleep and content with both his parents with him. Unaware that it could ever have been otherwise. And, like this, with Ethan asleep on the couch and the smell of fresh paint floating through from the redecorated nursery, Spencer said yes.

 

**July, 2006**

Ethan’s self-imposed silence of the past month broke in July, when he quietly asked them over breakfast if Spencer would travel to New Orleans with him to view the remains of Pantoufles, the land he now jointly owned with Fiona, who wanted nothing to do with anything within the devastated city.

“Have you been back since…?” Elle asked. Ethan shook his head.

“I’ll be there,” promised Spencer.

And he was. The city was a shadow of its former self. Boarded up homes and businesses, some still marked with the painted Xs denoting that a body had been found within. Some of the roads were impassable. People were far and few between. By the time Spencer’s car bumped over the ruined road to Pantoufles—they had to get out and walk the last stretch, the path completely washed away—Ethan was pale and shaking.

The house was no longer there. Only the foundation remained. They stood in silence staring at the wreckage-strewn area of the home, shoulders together and without a single consoling thought between the two of them.

“About what I expected,” Ethan said finally. “No point rebuilding…”

Spencer winced. “How much of this land do you own?” he asked. “Maybe… could you rebuild further from the river?” Ethan shot him a strange look, and he clarified: “This is your home. It’s likely they’ll replace the levees, make them stronger… anything to avoid a disaster of this magnitude again. Do you want to stay?”

“Yes,” said Ethan softly, without a pause to think. His expression, when he looked around the place he’d grown up, was longing. “I want to replant her garden… she loved it so, so much.”

Spencer spotted something in the trees, moving to wrestle it free. It was a struggle, until Ethan’s hands joined in and, together, they pulled loose the painted sign: _Pantoufles._

“Then we rebuild,” Spencer said, brushing mud from the careful lettering. “And if you need help, I’m here.”

 

**August, 2006**

Elle had leaped at the chance to camp on the side of the river, sleeping in the tiny tent that was all Ethan owned with Jack as Ethan and Spencer slept under the stars, glad that the mosquitos had faded away with the season. Beside them, the framework of the house was almost complete. Another few months, and Ethan would be able to move in.

“Where did you go?” asked Spencer, looking up at the stars with Ethan breathing quietly next to him. Sure his friend was asleep, but desperate to ask anyway, just in case.

“Around,” Ethan replied, awake after all and open to talking, the blankness fading from his eyes after a solid two months of being fed and having somewhere to return to. “Slept rough for a bit. Didn’t know what to do, honestly, I was just so gutted at losing Gram… if I’d gotten there sooner…”

“Don’t say that…” Spencer knew: that kind of thinking was destructively recursive.

“Yeah, I know. I know. Fi blames me.” Ethan closed his eyes, his chest moving slowly as he breathed in deep. “I just wanted to drown my misery. Ended up throwing it all in and just… stopping. It was better than drowning. I wasn’t me, so it didn’t hurt as much. No drinking, no music, no… you guys. I missed Jack being born. I’m sorry for that, he’s a great kid.”

Spencer swatting at a bug crawling on his sleeping bag, tensing as there was a noise from inside the tent. But the night remained quiet, whatever restlessness had caused the sound fading. “He has a great namesake,” he offered gently, letting Ethan take this or leave it.

He took it, laughing softly. “Yeah, I didn’t miss that. You ass. Damning your poor kid by naming him after me—I thought you loved him.”

“It was Elle’s idea.” Regretting saying that instantly, as he felt Ethan flinch, Spencer tried to change the subject: “What happened to Specky?”

Ethan did smile now, a longing look in his eyes. “He’s alright. Staying with a buddy I did some jobs for while I was out of it. Figure I’ll go get him once the house is back together—didn’t really want him underfoot, what with Elle all fragile right now.”

“Don’t call her that. She can still kick your ass.”

A cloud drifted across the moon overhead, taking with it their only light.

It was probably Ethan saying, “I’m sorry, you know. For scaring you guys. It was crap of me, but I wasn’t thinking. I was just hurting and didn’t want to share that with you, not when you’re… well, building something,” that made him say it. It was that admission. That, and the knowledge they wouldn’t be able to hide it from him much longer. Elle was determined to get it done before either could overthink it; Elle’s mom had already taken it all in hand. Spencer had tried to step back, let them deal with it, but Elle refused to let him bow down and let all his desires be ignored in the wake of Evelyn’s determination to ‘do this right’: this meant, despite Spencer refusing to stand up for himself against the terrifying woman, that they weren’t having it in a church, it was going to be small and private, and Evelyn had been banned by Elle from complaining about a single one of those things. Oddly, she’d agreed. He suspected that that meekness had been brought about by Elle’s unspoken threat of _you will lose us if you suggest that again_ when the woman had mentioned ‘conversion’.

So, he said, “I’m marrying her.”

“I know,” Ethan replied without missing a beat. “Elle told me. I’m happy for you guys.”

“Are you?”

A dark chuckle prefaced his reply. “No. I think it’s dumb and you’re both idiots. But you’re stubborn idiots, and I don’t really have a leg to stand on with not doing dumb things. November?”

“Yeah… Ethan?” The words choked in Spencer’s throat, the request he was going to make somehow refusing to be spoken. Lucky for him, Ethan had always known what he was going to say before he said it.

“Yeah,” he said shortly, rolling over so his back was to Spencer, eyes on the frame of the house that was to replace the home he’d lost: “I’ll be the worst best man ever but, yeah. If you want.”

Spencer nodded despite the movement being invisible in the dark. They’d never be what they had been; he knew this. But maybe, just like him and Elle in comparison to him and Aaron… maybe they could still be a different kind of good.

 

**October, 2006**

He turned twenty-four on a weekend trip to New Orleans, helping place the final coat of paint on the walls of the newly minted Pantoufles two point oh. Elle and Jack were with him.

They built a bonfire to celebrate, toasting marshmallows for Jack and teaching him to blow on the heated sugary goo before biting into them. Specky lay at Ethan’s feet, purring madly, still overwhelmed to be back by his beloved owner and just as manic as they remembered him being. Ethan had his keyboard, rescued from the same place he’d stashed the cat, and was wistfully tapping at the keys. The cheeks that had been hollow had begun to fill out, his hair brushing his eyes and smile faster to visit. Spencer didn’t think it was just them that had helped him; as Gram had once pointed out, Ethan recovered best when he had something to fix.

And, all around them, were the results of that fixing. The garden-beds were bare but ready to be planted for the coming spring. The sign was back in place. The trauma of the past few months was fading slowly. Elle still startled awake at night, fear in the soft _oh_ slipped from her nightmares, but Spencer was always there or, if he wasn’t, he was a short phone call away. And he told her, over and over and over again; he’d never let her be frightened alone. Never again. They could move past the anger and fear that Randall Garner had left behind in their lives.

They could rebuild the destruction Katrina had made of Ethan’s.

Spencer and Ethan were drunk, Spencer as stupidly lightheaded as he always got on the beer that Ethan favoured. Drunk and introspective, pacing the flickering bonfire with the wood popping and cracking and chasing away the autumn cold; he was twenty-four and felt twice as old, except when he looked around at the family around him and realised how far he’d come.

“I need a pen,” he announced, realising what he had to do. They looked at him, all three of them: Ethan rolling his eyes, Elle groaning, Jack grinning and holding his arms up with a loud, “Yay, Da!” He, at least, would always believe in Spencer. They were doing a good job raising him.

“A damn good job,” Spencer muttered drunkenly, accepting the pen Ethan had found in a toolbox and the receipt screwed up and tossed down for the marshmallows: with these as his tools he got to work.

It was time for a letter, one of the most important he’d ever write. And it went, once deciphered the next day by more sober eyes, like this:

> _Dear Ethan,_
> 
> _I’m sorry. I was never as good a friend to you as I should have been, and there’s nothing I can do now to change that except admit that it was my faults and failings that caused the trouble between us. I hurt you, over and over again, and you didn’t walk away when you should have. You should have._
> 
> _This is my letter to state this: I, Spencer Reid, am a deeply selfish and fundamentally flawed individual and I recognise this. Despite all these things, I can move beyond who I am right now. I can’t right the wrongs I’ve caused you, but I can promise to do better. I’m not doomed to repeat the sins of my past. I’m not who Connors made of me._
> 
> _With you and Elle and Jack as my witnesses, I promise this. As my supreme friend and my future wife and my wonderful son, you are all the greatest parts of my life and a reason to do better._
> 
> _I promise to do better. I promise_

He’d run out of space in the end but, even though he couldn’t remember for sure, he was pretty sure he’d been planning to promise to love them, for as long as he was able.

Even unfinished, the receipt was taken by Ethan and framed to hang in the spare room—deemed Spencer and Elle’s room—right where he’d have to look at it every time he visited. And only Ethan and Spencer knew that something else had been added, hidden within the frame. It was a slip of paper with Ethan’s handwriting, and it read: _Apology accepted. I love you too._


	60. November, 2006

“Piss off, Ethan,” Spencer said, scowling at Ethan looming close. “You’re supposed to be filming Elle, not me.”

“Oh, she doesn’t look anywhere near as lovely in a tux,” Ethan replied pertly, lowering the camera and stepping closer. “Stop moving around. You’ve got your jacket buttoned all crooked.” The camera was turned off and set-aside, the ‘stand-by’ light blinking at Spencer as Ethan wrestled with his jacket. “Stop thinking. You look sick.”

Spencer shuddered. Wondered. Asked.

“Am I making a mistake?”

There was silence in the dressing room. Outside, he could hear movement, clatters and bangs as people found their seats ready to watch this wedding happen. This wedding that probably shouldn’t be happening. The wedding that was happening anyway. Did he regret it?

He didn’t know.

“Yes,” Ethan said finally, his hands dropping to his side and his mouth drooping with them. Clean-shaven with his hair tied back neatly, his appearance suggested that he was far more into this day than he actually was.

The buck’s night had been quiet. Just him and Ethan and drinking themselves into a stupor. He was celebrating something that night, but he wasn’t sure what. Normality. A second chance. A little bit that he was marrying a beautiful woman who would stand by him, a little bit more than he loved her and loved their son.

A little bit because he knew, deep down, he knew, that he didn’t love her as much as he could. As he had for someone previously. He almost wished Aaron was here, and hated himself for wishing that. But not as a partner. He couldn’t do that to Elle. As a friend though, the friend who’d held his hand and led him unflinchingly into a storm?

Spencer needed that today.

Ethan picked up the camera, sitting down heavily in its place with it resting on his lap and his eyes downcast. Spencer watched him, the silence clinging. He wondered, _do you still love her_ , and thought maybe he should have asked that years ago. It was too late now. Far too late. Their paths were set.

“What are you thinking?” he asked instead of that.

Ethan’s eyes flickered up to him, colder and heavier than they’d ever been when Spencer was high. A twinge followed that thought, a distant craving. He shoved it away.

“Give me one reason why I should stand by your side up there?” Ethan murmured, a shade of their argument lurching up between them. “Why I shouldn’t walk away and make you think twice about this idiocy?”

“You already rented the tux.” A weak joke. It didn’t even come out right, instead sounding strangled and miserable.

“ _Spencer_.”

But he couldn’t answer, and Ethan was relentless. Despite the fact he was sitting, despite the fact that he wasn’t looming or pushing or furious, every word still hammered home until Spencer thought he might collapse, driven to his knees by the size of the day and the expectations of the audience waiting, of Ethan’s simmering resentment.

“Give me _one_ reason you’re marrying her,” Ethan demanded, something savage in his voice. Something longing. Something that reminded Spencer of how viciously he’d once fought for Aaron’s happiness. “One reason that isn’t related to her shitty, pushy family or, I don’t know, Jack. Or me. Just one, Spencer! One!”

Spencer didn’t answer.

“Please.” Ethan’s head was in his hands. He didn’t want to walk away. It would be the end of them. “Why _her_? There are so many people you could have been this stupid with, so many… why Elle?”

It took his breath catching and aching in his chest for him to realise he was opening his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. The panic was crushing. He was being crushed. He couldn’t do this.

He had to do this.

“Do you love her?” Ethan asked his hands.

That got his mouth moving, his heart slamming twice and fists twisting shut into a fist. “What kind of a question is that?” Now, Ethan looked up, something unreadable in his eyes. Maybe hope, but that didn’t feel right. Weren’t they fighting? “I’m marrying her. Think what you like about my inherent shittiness as a human being, I wouldn’t marry her if I didn’t love her. That wouldn’t make her happy.”

Ethan cocked his head. “Do you want to make her happy?”

“Yes!”

Yes. Absolutely. More than anything. Penance for his sins; pleasure for their future.

“Fine.” Ethan stood slowly, like he was old and feeble. Wordless in the faith of that exhaustive effort, Spencer held out his hand and silently helped him up. “You love her. But do you fucking _love_ her, Spencer, not like you love me.” Another step closer. Ethan leaned close, his breath coming quick. “Like you loved Aaron?”

“I—”

He what?

He froze.

“Will you ever love her like you loved Aaron?” Those green eyes bored a vicious hole in his head, unrelenting. Spencer couldn’t meet that gaze. “Because it’s not fair if you walk out there if the answer is no and you know it.”

“No!” Spencer snapped, closing his eyes and swaying at the shout. He clarified: “But, no… it’s different. I can’t… it will never be like Aaron. It shouldn’t _be_ like Aaron. We weren’t good for each other, we dragged each other down just as much as we pulled each other up. If I’d stayed with Aaron, we’d both be dead.”

Ethan hmmed at him, looking away and saying, almost thoughtfully, “Like us. When things are good, they’re good, but when they’re bad we barely hang on.”

“We do alright.” The anger, it seemed, had passed. “Ethan… there’s going to be bad times. There are always bad times. If I’d stayed with Aaron, those bad times would have… I fall. I fall when things are tough. And Aaron falls with me and you prop me up at your own expense, and Elle…” It hit. It hammered home. He stood a little taller with the knowledge of it. “She doesn’t fall, she doesn’t crumble, she doesn’t validate my shittiness.”

“You’re focusing on the bad on what’s supposed to be the happiest day of your life,” Ethan pointed out, mouth twisting. “Shit, man, that’s—”

“No.” Spencer was sure now: he knew why he was marrying her. “I always focus on the bad—all I’ve _known_ to this point is bad. And I look at Elle and I see someone who isn’t thrown about in the wake of that, who my destructive tendencies can’t hurt…” He closed his eyes, feeling a smile twist about in his chest and work its way to his mouth despite the grimness of the moment. “I think of her and I see her holding my child and standing by my side, and she’s still untouched by every dangerous, terrible thing inside me. She still smiles, when Aaron stopped, and she’s still strong, when you had to reach for a bottle to stay with me. She’s my counter—where I’m weak, she’s strong, where I falter, she’s steady. When I fail her in some way—and I expect to—it won’t destroy her. And it won’t destroy Jack.”

Ethan was staring, stunned, and Spencer felt like he’d said every word in his brain and left none behind to think with.

“I’m willing to give her _everything_ ,” Spencer said firmly, because he was. “But she doesn’t need it from me. There’s no part of her that’s reliant on me. That’s why I’m marrying her—not because she needs me, but because she wants me. Despite everything, she wants me, she loves me, and she’s not scared of me. Can you stand by that?”

Someone laughed outside. There was a knock at the door.

“Yeah,” said Ethan, picking up the camera. “Yeah, I can. Let’s go.”

They walked from the room together.


	61. December, 2006

It took something terrible for something wonderful to happen. Something so fundamentally awful that it threw Spencer’s own life into stark relief, bringing the shadows out into the light. He wished it hadn’t happened, but knew enough to be glad that it had.

It took Carl Buford. It took Derek Morgan’s pain for Spencer to realise: he was absolutely not who his past had made of him.

When the case was over and they were flying home, Spencer steadied himself. He washed his face in the tiny jet bathroom and then he walked to his friend’s side and sat beside him, sorely aware that absolutely everyone was listening to him. But that was right—it was important that they all be here. Not for him—this wasn’t about him. Or, rather, it was, but not _for_ him. It was about him, to help Morgan. Morgan who was hurting, who had been hurt, just like Spencer had, and only Spencer could offer something to him that the others couldn’t. Even if that was just a second light in the darkness Morgan knew, or even if that was just aligning himself beside the man in the eyes of their colleagues. A sign that ‘they will not hold this against you’ because Spencer was there, a sign that ‘you are not alone’.

The flight seared itself into Spencer’s brain. Prentiss was directly across from them. Rossi next to Prentiss. JJ was behind them on the couch. Gideon was behind Rossi, but still within earshot. Everyone could hear as Spencer pulled his knees up in a protective gesture he hated but needed and said, as Morgan’s shoulders hunched and a dark look flickered over his features, “Nothing about this case changes how I see you.”

“Bullshit,” Morgan snapped, and there was raw anger in his voice. Rossi’s head lifted, his mouth opening, and Spencer shook his head. He needed to do this. Emily watched, and Spencer refused to meet her gaze. “How could it not? You guys all saw what that… now you know what that bastard _did_. How can that not change me?”

“Because it doesn’t define you,” Spencer said simply. Everyone was looking now, even if they were pretending they weren’t. “You’ve grown beyond the boy that Buford took advantage of. You took what he did to you and you used it to become someone new—someone who stops what happened to you, or to me, happening to other people. But you did that, not him. As far as I’m concerned, nothing about you has changed—you’re the same strong person you were twenty-four hours ago, when I knew nothing about it.”

“You don’t—” Morgan began, and then stopped. Everyone had stopped. Rossi’s eyebrows had lifted, Gideon was sitting painfully rigid, and JJ had inhaled sharply. Prentiss, as usual, showed no shift in her expression, watching Spencer carefully. No one seemed to know what to say. “Reid?”

“Does it change anything about me?” Spencer questioned him, making sure to meet his gaze despite how discomforting he often found it to do so. “Knowing that I suffered similarly? Because if it doesn’t, then you should use that as evidence of our absolute acceptance of you as who you are now.”

It was Rossi who prompted the conversation to continue, seeing more clearly than Morgan had that this was Spencer offering a way to lance the wound that this case had brought to the surface again. It wouldn’t go away this time, Spencer could tell. If they didn’t tackle it now, it would simmer and fester and create a distance between them that would be their eventual undoing.

Rossi asked, “How old?”

“I was fifteen,” Spencer replied. The words, once they left his lips, made a path for the others that followed, the easiest it had ever been to talk about it. “He was in his late twenties, I don’t care to remember his exact age.” That was a lie: Ross had been twenty-eight. “I travelled away to college at thirteen and he was the professor that they assigned to acclimatise me into college life. Instead, he isolated me and, after two years of grooming in order to gain my absolute trust, he raped me repeatedly.” Morgan wasn’t moving but Spencer felt, all at once, lighter and heavier than he had in years. It felt gross to him to voice the words, but also liberating. Here, on this jet, surrounded by some of the sharpest minds the FBI had to offer? It was proof that he was more than this story. “Despite this, I’m here. Despite Buford, you’re here with me. They might be a part of us, sure, but they’re the parts that drive us to hunt people like them. And they’ll always drive us because we’ve proven they can’t destroy us. Why would that change my opinion of you?”

Morgan looked like he might speak, torn between that and silence, but he let the silence last too long. It was Rossi, again, who spoke. “You’re a fantastic partner and agent and we’re lucky to have you here beside us, no matter what happened to bring you here,” he said, leaning back in his seat. “Both of you. And don’t either of you go getting stupid about your pasts—none of that matters anymore. You’ve already shown that. Healing is done, now you’ve got the rest of your lives to live. Save the reminiscing for when you’re old and crusty like I am.”

“I’ll never be crusty,” Prentiss said smoothly, breaking the spell that had settled over them. “That’s a misery solely assigned to men like you, Rossi.”

“Rude,” Rossi replied, and they laughed, even Morgan.

It was at the airfield that Morgan caught up to him, catching him arm as he went to climb into his car to drive home. “Spencer, wait,” he said, breathing heavily with his dark skin glistening with sweat despite the frigid air. “What you said back there… I didn’t answer you. I didn’t thank you. That must have been hard and I know you told it for me… thanks. I appreciate it, man.”

“S’okay,” Spencer murmured, his mouth numb with the cold and his mind already halfway home to his warm bed and maybe talking Elle into letting Jack sleep in their bed with them for the night. “Just needed you to know I’ve been where you were. I know how it can destroy you. And, trust me, nothing you did to dispel that hurt could be more destructive than what I did…”

But, as it turned out, there was some things he still couldn’t talk about and the drugs and his life following Ross were two of those things. He fell silent, the words too heavy to drop into this chilly, winter night.

“How long did he get?” Morgan asked.

Spencer blinked, not quite following. “Buford?” he asked, confused.

“No, the man who hurt you. How long did he get?” Silence followed this, before a sharp comprehension dawned on Morgan’s face. Spencer shrunk back from that and the guilt that followed, the sickly guilt that had been building since Buford had been led away in cuffs. “Shit, fuck, man, I… I didn’t realise. No one believed you?”

“I didn’t press charges,” Spencer said, feeling sick. Dizzy. Hurting.

He knew what Morgan would respond now: you could have stopped him doing this to others; he deserved prison; you could have done more; why didn’t you do more?

But, instead, Morgan said, “Yeah, I get that. I’ve been there. If you ever change your mind about that, let me know. I’ve got your back.” The hand on Spencer’s arm squeezed and let go, but only so Morgan could hug him properly. Spencer let himself be hugged, even awkwardly returning the gesture, something delicate and careful between them in this moment. It wasn’t like hugging Aaron, or Ethan, and it was over in a second, but the warmth lingered. “I’ll be beside you every step of the way, just like you were for me.”

“Thanks, Derek, but I don’t think…” Spencer trailed off. “It wouldn’t do any good by this point.”

Morgan smiled grimly. “I don’t know,” he said. “It’s done me more good than I think I know. Goodnight, Spencer.” He nodded and walked away, leaving Spencer to consider his words.

On the way home, it began to snow. He drove carefully, despite his eagerness, because his number one priority was and always would be to come home safely to his wife and child—but when he was home, he ran for his son, eager to bring him out into the falling snow and show him how magical life could be.

“I told Morgan,” was all he told Elle, as they dressed Jack together.

“Oh yeah?” she replied. “How did that go?” Careful words in a careful tone, her eyes watching him intently.

He thought about it. And he said, “It helped.”


	62. February, 2007

“There will be bad times,” he’d told Ethan the night of his wedding, and there were.

He had never imagined just how bad they could possibly be.

In his shoulder bag, there was a card. It was stupid, really. He hadn’t planned on buying it—what was the point of buying a card for a two-year-old? Jack certainly couldn’t really appreciate the sentiment yet, although he would likely get a kick out of opening it again and again to make the tinny speaker set inside it cause the cartoon polar bear to roar. It was the silliest possible thing and it had cost almost seven dollars. Spencer hadn’t even written in it yet—Jack’s birthday was days away, he had time.

He considered, as Tobias Hankel beat him, that now he probably never would. It would remain blank until Elle was given his personal effects along with the Bureau’s sincerest apologies, and maybe then she’d write something within it. After crying. He assumed she’d cry, although maybe that was just wishful thinking, but surely she would be sad about the death of her husband? He wondered if she knew yet. He wondered how long it had been.

He stopped wondering because the next blow was to his head and he

drifted

.

..

.

When he woke, he thought again of the card, but only for a second. For some hours following that, he couldn’t think of his wife or his son or even his untimely death or uncertain survival. There was a choice—with no right answer—and a death—his fault—and then there were the drugs. In the heartbeat before Hankel slipped the strap around his arm with a sound like being fifteen again, Spencer lived a lifetime. He saw everything. He saw living and he saw dying and he saw being a boy building a fort once more. He saw being a boy shooting up for the first time. He saw Ethan and Aaron and everyone in-between. He thought of Elle, and how disappointed she’d be in him.  

“Please don’t,” was all he said, because disappointing her was worse than dying. And then he fought, despite the ropes binding him, despite the surety it would cause him more pain—he fought because he had to. Because he’d married her and given her a son and he owed them both the husband and father who wasn’t bound to the whim of a needle’s eye.

And, just like when he was fifteen and all those years after, fighting wasn’t enough. He’d never been strong enough, and he didn’t start now.

The needle bit home.

“Can you smell smoke?” he asked, and laughed. He could. Ha.

He could.

It was his life burning down.

He only woke up to come down, almost glad to fail because at least this way he wouldn’t remember dying.

..

.

..

He opened his eyes and found Aaron sitting by him. They were still in the cabin, not even his hallucinations could be kind to him, and Aaron’s hair was longer than it had been and hung floppily into his eyes.

“I like that,” Spencer said groggily, nodding to his hair. “It makes you look younger. How old are you now?”

“Older than you,” Aaron teased, leaning close but not touching. Oh, how Spencer longed for that touch. He began to cry. “Hey, hey, don’t do that… it’s alright, you know. It won’t hurt.”

“It always hurts,” Spencer disagreed. “Disappointing people. I disappointed you, and now I’m disappointing Elle and god knows I disappointed Ethan. It’s all I am.”

Aaron frowned, his lawyer face firmly in place. He was older and younger all at once, the boy Spencer had known and the man he’d walked away from. “That’s not true and you know it. It completely contradicts what you told Morgan—and what you promised Ethan.”

“I didn’t promise Ethan anything,” Spencer mumbled, his head nodding down. But, when he looked up, Aaron was gone.

..

.

..

Whatever day it was, he didn’t know. The drugs hit him hard, harder than he could have imagined, and life had turned to honey around him. He thought maybe he’d had too much; he thought maybe he’d had too little. Aaron had said it wouldn’t hurt, but hurting was all he was. He didn’t remember dying to be so painful.

He wanted his son.

He dreamed of holding him. Of warm arms around his neck, clinging close, and Jack’s sticky mouth pressed to his cheek. “Daddy, I’m this,” Jack said, holding up three fingers.

“You’re not,” Spencer corrected. “You’re one.”

“I’m this,” said Jack again, and giggled. “Mama says.”

Spencer thought about it. How long had he been here? He didn’t know. All he could do was hug his son close with arms that weren’t tied anymore and tickle him until he giggled, chubby legs flailing and arms dangerously wild near Spencer’s sore face. “Raspberry, raspberry!” Jack howled with his childish pronunciations in full effect, and Spencer obliged. There was nothing he wouldn’t do for his son.

“I think you might be two,” he said sadly when the giggling was over. “Did you go and get older while I wasn’t looking?”

“No, Daddy.” Jack looked scared and worried all at once, resisting Spencer’s best efforts to wipe that fear away. “Mama did it, not me. I’m good.”

“You’re the best,” Spencer agreed. “The most wonderful thing I’ve ever, ever done…” And he was crying again, clinging to a boy who was slipping away from him.

“He is beautiful.”

“Go away,” Spencer sobbed to that voice, furious and longing all at once. He opened his eyes. The cabin again, Jack silent and sleepy in his lap and Aaron watching by the video camera, his body blocking the scolding view of the bank of screens behind him. “Why are you here?”

“Why are you?” But Aaron didn’t seem inclined to wax poetic with him, instead crouching to study Jack. “God, Spence… look at him. He’s you, and Elle. He’s gorgeous.”

Spencer didn’t answer.

“You did that, you know.” Aaron’s words were soft, his expression softer, and he looked at Spencer like the real Aaron had and never would again. “You made him—and he’s wonderful. Not everything you do is terrible.”

“Dying is.” They were silent after this. “This is the worst thing I could do.”

“Yeah,” Aaron agreed, hunching his shoulders. “Yeah, no lie, this is pretty shit of you. So, don’t?”

Spencer looked at him, as Aaron pulled something from his pocket that shouldn’t be there. A folded-up receipt paper, and he read from it: “As my supreme friend and my future wife and my wonderful son, you are all the greatest parts of my life and a reason to do better—”

He cut in: “Why do you have that?”

Aaron went to answer, but Spencer woke up.

..

.

..

“Choose one to die,” said Hankel, and Spencer refused. Better him than them. Better him than—

He thought of his son.

“Don’t kill me,” he told the revolver as it clicked once more, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’ll choose—don’t kill me. I have a child…”

He was drifting again, sick and dizzy as his body warred with the drugs it had craved for so long. Resenting his past addictions because, if it wasn’t for them, he could have been clearer in this moment. He could have done better.

“A child?” he was asked. “A bastard.”

Spencer didn’t remember telling him that.

_Maybe the bastard should die too._

Spencer screamed. Somewhere in his fury, there was a tangled memory of a bloodied nursery and the knowledge that he hadn’t done what he’d promised—he hadn’t stopped it happening again. He’d failed them. He’d failed, he’d failed, he’d failed, he’d failed, he’d…

.

..

.

He dreamed of his son once more, but this time they were older. Jack was a boy, seven or eight, and he cringed from his father.

“Daddy, don’t,” he whined, and Spencer was furious.

“Do better,” he told him coldly, and struck. Again and again and, when he stopped, his hands were bloody and it was Hankel, not Jack, that stared accusingly at him.

“Profile yourself,” Hankel told him. “Why does this keep happening? Why do you keep failing when you try—why is it such an inherent part of you?”

Spencer knew why.

Those who are hurt, hurt others.

And he didn’t believe that, except, sometimes, he did.

 

* * *

 

He was finally dying and it was just as honeyed as the last few days of living had been. It took minutes, and it took hours, and everything stopped for a while. Aaron watched the whole time, standing by Hankel and doing nothing but crying, while Elle strode around Spencer and screamed and yelled and fought for him while he betrayed her by dying. Ethan wasn’t there.

_I’m sorry,_ he told Elle, who snapped, “Fuck off you are. You do this on purpose.”

He guessed that maybe she knew he was gone now.

_I’m sorry,_ he told Jack, who screamed like he hadn’t since Elle had almost died. Those screams, Spencer knew, he wouldn’t forget. Not ever. They cemented the knowledge that he’d promised to do better when Elle had almost been lost, and he hadn’t. He was poison. To his family, he was poison.

_I’m sorry,_ he told Aaron, who hugged his arms close to his body and shook his head so slowly that Spencer could see how the motion disrupted the tears on his cheeks.

_I’m sorry,_ he told himself, because he’d thought he could do better than this.

 

When the seizing stopped, so did he.


	63. Elle Greenaway

**February, 2007**

Elle’s face when she walked into his hospital room _hurt_. But she didn’t say anything. Around them, there was noise: the whir of the machines, the huff of his strained breathing, medical staff outside the room talking, chattering, living. But within the room, in that small bubble of tangled misery, there was silence.

He struggled to breathe, wondering what she saw when she looked at him. Could she see the damage that had been done—the scars he wasn’t even aware of yet? They were lingering, he knew. Ready to surface soon enough, to bubble up and cripple him right when he needed to be strong. In his arm, the drip tugged as he moved it closer, pulling at the skin that was already bitten and sore from the needles Hankel had used on him. No guarantee of cleanliness, he was going to have to be tested for the entire battery of needle-stick borne pathogens. Distantly, he was dismayed by this. The tug of the drip didn’t really bother him though, not really. It was just another ache on a body that ached all over, every part of him battered raw.

And she still hadn’t spoken.

He stared at the blankets covering him, focusing so hard on the wide weave of the cotton that his eyes began to sting and water, a buzzing setting going in his brain. So focused that he didn’t even hear her approaching, the soft tread of her shoes until she was right beside him and reaching a trembling hand to touch his arm, to trace the crook and settle on the mottled bruising marring the pale skin.

“You were drugged,” she whispered, her voice cracking. “They told me you were g-gone and that they were looking and… they were looking. And he _drugged_ you, after everything we’ve been through, he gave you drugs…”

He couldn’t lift his gaze. Her voice was thick, her hand still shaking, and he didn’t know what he’d do if he looked up to find her tearful. He just watched her hand until it settled upon his, two of her fingers curling tight around his ring finger and the plain gold band he’d scrubbed clean as soon as he’d had the opportunity. It was that touch that undid him. He looked up at her face, studying it intently and refusing to flinch when she studied him right back.

“That bastard tortured you,” she said, the tearfulness fading and replaced with anger now that he was looking at him. “The doctors told me you have signs of _torture_ , Spence. After I was hurt, after that fucker shot me, we talked about this—you said you could promise we would be _safe_.”

“You are safe,” Spencer said, confused. “He would have never found you—I would have died rather than told him where you are.”

Elle shook her head and her fingers tightened; it was such a wordless plea, those gripping fingers, that he couldn’t help but bear the pain of turning his wrist around so he could grip right back, enveloping her smaller hand in his. “You idiot,” she breathed, and, to his utter disbelief, slid onto the bed beside him and, with painful care, burrowed in tightly to his side, “you still don’t see how loved you are, do you?”

Pressed so tightly to him like that, he could tell she was hiding her face for a reason. Her heart was hammering along with his, right as the withdrawal slammed into him and he twitched and choked back a gasp of pain. Everything from his skin to his brain stung, his body screaming for relief, and he fumbled for the call button even as he wished he could be left alone. His other arm had curled around her almost of its own accord, clutching tight with no intention of ever letting go and, instead of pressing the button to summon the easy relief, he dropped it and rolled painfully to huddle against her and steady his shaking.

“This isn’t fair, _fuck_ , fuck this, fuck your job,” she was snarling against his hair. “We can’t _lose_ you, Spence, Jack needs you and I—”

“Don’t,” he mumbled through the nausea and pain. He couldn’t hear that. She couldn’t say that.

“I want you to quit,” she said, and he knew she didn’t mean it even as the words sounded. “Look at you. You’re withdrawing in front of me, like you used to, and I can’t stand it. You look…”

“Like what he made of me,” Spencer stammered, unsure if he meant Ross or Hankel, his teeth chattering along. There were things he could take to make this easier, but he couldn’t make it easy. It had to be hard—he couldn’t take the easy way out, not anymore.

“I’m not losing you to this,” she told him firmly, and reached across to push the button herself. “Not to your job, not to these bullshit drugs.” He didn’t stop her, even as she told the nurse he needed relief. He didn’t stop her.

He always knew she’d hold him steady.

 

**March, 2007**

They didn’t tell Ethan. He made Elle promise she wouldn’t. It would hurt him too much, and Spencer was _done_ hurting people.

But still, it kept happening. He couldn’t hug or play with his son without his bruised ribs screeching and leaving him panting. His broken foot left him hobbling slowly while Jack hurtled about with boundless energy, completely unaware that anything had even happened over those terrible three days. Elle hadn’t told him, and Spencer didn’t blame her. Better his removal be sudden and quick, like a band-aid.

But he shook those thoughts off, because Elle knew he was thinking them and it tore at her.

His uselessness at home hurt Jack, who wanted his dad how he’d always been, and his inability to go back to work hurt the team, who needed him. His refusal to consider walking away from the job hurt Elle, who woke in the night sweating and silent now, without telling him what had woken her. But he knew. He’d made the mistake of telling her everything he’d seen when drugged, because he remembered it all in a nightmarish slideshow of dying.

A nightmare shared was a nightmare doubled. He caught her throwing up one morning and, after coaxing, she admitted it was because she couldn’t stop the image of him dead from popping up into her mind at the worst possible times. There was really nothing he could do but kneel by her side and make sure her hair didn’t get caught in the mess, staring at the bathroom tiles and wishing he could be less dangerous to those around him.

He dreamed of the cabin but it was Jack tied to the chair, not him. Repeating his father’s mistakes, and it was Spencer’s hands holding the needle.

The withdrawal faded but the longing didn’t.

There were two vials of doctored Diluadid in his office, hidden behind a locked drawer and a pile of taxation paperwork. He didn’t take them, but he thought about it.

Constantly.

“Have you spoken to your mom?” Elle tried one morning, finding him still curled in bed as she readied herself to leave for work. Weapon on and her ‘agent’ face already firmly in place, Jack clinging to her leg seemed at odds with the rest of her. “Maybe you should call her today.”

“Maybe,” he agreed, shuffling across so Jack could join him. He had no intentions of calling her. What would he say?

I failed again.

“Well, maybe tidy a little around here,” Elle coaxed, striding across the room and tugging the curtains open. Painful light streamed in and Jack giggled as he covered his eyes. “I’ve seen attics less dusty than our carpets.”

Spencer just looked to the cast on his foot and let it speak for itself.

She tried once more, an inch of desperation creeping into her tone: “What about taking Jack to the park? He’s getting antsy with being stuck home while you’re—”

“It’s not my fault he’s home,” Spencer snapped, anger rearing. Couldn’t she see he was _trying_? What was cleaning or calling people—what did it matter? He was here, he was sober, he was doing the best he could and he couldn’t do _more_. “Why is he home? I can’t do anything with him and he’s miserable, why aren’t we taking him to day-care?” Jack was ignoring them, playing with Spencer’s arm as he pretended he was waking him up. Spencer tugged his arm away, irritated.

“Don’t snap at me, asshole.” Elle was always quick to rise to a baiting tone, and his was sour. He tried to rein it back, seeing her eyes narrowing dangerously. “I’m not the one spending all day in bed.”

“I’m tired.”

“You’re depressed.”

He ignored that. “I’m tired,” he repeated, more firmly. And he was—a bone-deep, soul-sucking exhaustion that left him quick to anger and slow to respond. “I’m sore, Elle, I’m barely healed and—”

“Nope, no excuses. Get _out_ of bed. I’m not Aaron, I’m not going to put up with—”

She stopped because he’d surged up, almost landing hard on his broken foot, and he wondered what she saw in his eyes that she actually took a step back from him.

“Don’t,” he warned her. Silence pervaded the bedroom.

Jack flopped back onto the bed behind them, unfazed by his dad’s desertion. “Assss-ho,” he chirped happily, and laughed. Elle’s mouth twitched.

“Good work,” Spencer said coldly, seeing nothing funny in their son learning to swear. “Good to know he’s learning wonderful things.”

“Oh, don’t be such a wet blanket.” Her mouth wasn’t twitching now, set into a furious line. “You don’t want him here? Fine. I’ll book him into day-care starting tomorrow. You can sit here and sulk, alone. I love you both.”

And she was gone.

“Ass-ho,” Jack said again, tugging the sheets up into his mouth. “Bye-bye, Mama.”

“Bye-bye, Mama,” Spencer parroted softly, staring at the empty doorway. Despite her anger and frustration with him, she’d still said she loved him. That was new. They’d never felt the need to reassure each other before. Painfully, he found his crutches and hobbled out into the kitchen to start the dishes.

That night, Elle came home to find him and Jack in bed, silent as she walked in. She undressed without turning the light on before crawling in beside them and shuffling close.

“I love you,” she repeated in a whisper, kissing his jaw. He kept his eyes shut and breathing even, one arm wrapped around Jack, and didn’t reply. Eventually, she rolled over and went to sleep without saying anything more.

He stayed on his side of the bed and didn’t sleep at all, wondering what he was doing and who it was helping.

 

**May, 2007**

In May, he relapsed. He didn’t even have the excuse of withdrawal to cling to. He relapsed because he was weak.

He relapsed because it was inevitable.

It was a cowardly, heinous act and he knew he had to face the punishment he deserved. He rung Elle. He was high. It was almost funny, really.

“You need to get Jack from day-care,” he said, watching the lights on the walls and drearily enjoying the distance he felt right now. Her anger didn’t bother him, her voice was nothing to him. It was what he’d needed. Nothing hurt. “I’m high. You need to get him. I’m… high.”

She was furious and it was everything he deserved.

He felt nothing and he guessed maybe this proved what he’d been thinking. Everything Hankel had showed him was true. He’d just keep hurting them. Over and over and over and over, because those who were hurt never really got over it, did they?

“How could you do this to me?” she was snarling, gorgeous in her anger. He watched her rage and felt _something_ —a hot rush of arousal that was fierce and hungry and he’d have fucked her then, if she’d have stood for it. The idea of that anger tunnelled into sex was exciting like nothing else had been in months, and _that_ more than anything was a return of the Spencer of old. “How could you do it to Jack?”

“I didn’t do it to either of you,” he replied callously. “I did it to myself. Is it so hard to think that I didn’t consider you at all?”

He’d always been cruel when high.

And when he was done with being lectured and sure he hadn’t heard a word she’d said, he stood, walked past her without looking at her once, said, “I don’t remember if I love you anymore,” and left.

He’d be sorry in the morning, but the morning was a long way away.

 

**July, 2007**

The second relapse was in July and he took enough to bypass cruel and dump him at numb.

Elle sat beside him and didn’t touch him at all. He didn’t know how long he’d been here or where here was, but it dipped below him with her weight and his hands felt detached. He watched his fingers on the sheets and wondered if he’d ever hurt Jack, if he was capable of it, feeling a very, very distant horror at the concept.

“Do I need to send Jack away?” Elle was saying quietly. There was resignation in her voice. “Are you going to make me do that? Because you get one more fuck-up before I go with him and leave your ass here to dry out—this is your one chance to have me help you. I warned you at the start, Spence, I won’t tolerate the drugs. We won’t do this again, not ever again.”

“If I loved him, I wouldn’t be high right now,” Spencer replied.

“Shut up. That’s the drugs and the depression that you won’t go get help for talking, you shitheel. There’s not a doubt in my mind that you love your son, don’t pretend otherwise.”

“If I loved you, I wouldn’t be high right now.” He curled his fingers, made a fist. Let it go. Traced the shadows of his hand on the sheets.

“Yeah, well, I love you. And that’s why I’m telling you—one chance, Spence. We get you clean now or I’m gone. Don’t make me do that.”

Breath on the back of his neck. She was laying as close as possible without actually touching him, still hot with the anger of finding him stoned.

“You should,” he admitted. “Hurt me like I hurt you. I deserve it. Just go.”

Her breath was damp and uncomfortable, but he couldn’t be assed to move away from it. So he let it go. At least this way, he knew she was alive. Still alive, no matter how much he’d tried to make it be otherwise. He wondered if she’d seen he wasn’t wearing his wedding ring. He’d had to take it off. It felt sickening, to wear it while high. Like a betrayal of their vows, like he wasn’t really relapsing unless the ring was present. Except that didn’t make sense. Did it?

“I need you to get better, please,” she whispered, and he winced. Fuck. She’d said it. Deep down, he knew this was the end of them—she could never, ever be reliant on him. “Please, please, _please_ get better this time—don’t make me walk out on you. You’re scared of hurting us, Spence? That asshole Hankel got you so fucking tied up in your brain that you can’t see a way out of this without us getting caught in the crossfire? Then _stop_ it. You’re self-destructing to prove a point!”

“You don’t need me,” he told her, and curled both tighter and further away from her. “Don’t ever say you do.”

She didn’t respond, and he stayed sober. For a little while.

But the bad times always returned.

 

**August, 2007**

He went back to work. It was far, far too easy to convince the psychologist running his psyc. evaluation that he was okay. Stupidly easy. The team?

He wasn’t quite sure.

Emily dug at him constantly, pushing each and every one of his buttons to see if he’d snap and show her all the parts of him that weren’t healing. He didn’t fall for it.

Morgan was just there. Goading him into going out after work, to spending time with him. Spencer turned each and every offer down. The man was too good a profiler, and too good at discerning damage.

Rossi and Gideon kept their distance, the first because they’d never really been close and Hankel hadn’t changed that, and Gideon because he was guilty and barely hiding it.

JJ kept her distance too. It didn’t help that Elle had zeroed in on her as the cause of his abduction, latching onto the idea of sloppy teamwork to justify her searing hatred of the other agent. Spencer tried to defend JJ, he really did and it _hurt_ that Elle hated someone he cared about so much, but he was just so tired, he didn’t have the energy for it. JJ bore the brunt of Elle’s fury and Spencer let it happen, despite knowing it wasn’t her fault, not at all.

He went to therapy, away from the Bureau and under a different name, paying out of pocket, just to keep Elle happy. It didn’t help and it stretched their funds tight.

He tried to go to NA and left before the first meeting had even concluded, memories of his stint in rehab burning him. Afterwards, he drove around aimlessly before going home, almost sure that Elle—just like Aaron, all those year ago—wouldn’t be there. But she was, and so was Jack, and he hugged them both close and then took them out for a drive to see all the city lights. Elle wasn’t impressed; Jack was astounded. A memory to treasure.

He slipped up once and kept it private, sleeping it off in his car and not going home until the withdrawal had faded. If the team knew, they didn’t approach him. He guessed he’d gotten away with it or, alternatively, he’d become so invisible to them that they’d missed every blatant sign.

If Elle knew, she didn’t leave.

And he just kept pushing his luck.

 

**September, 2007**

Instead of catching the jet, he missed it deliberately and went to watch Ethan play. The man didn’t know he was there and so Spencer was free to observe him as much as he wished, seeing something in his best friend’s face that was new and strange. He didn’t really look like the Ethan of past years—not the slightly-too-skinny Ethan of when Spencer had met him, or the barely-not-a-beatnik Ethan of the years following, or even the haggard wreck of a man Katrina had made of him. He’d put on weight, grown his hair out once more, added a neatly trimmed beard.

And he was smiling as he sung. Not at anyone in particular, his hands alive on the piano below them. No, he was smiling at the music and the sound he was creating, lost in it as he’d always loved to be.

It was a comfort, of a kind. Spencer nursed his whiskey and faced the fact that Ethan had found what he’d been looking for, his place in the world—some dusty, battered jazz club on the outskirts of New Orleans, but his name was over the bar and Spencer was stunned to realise he owned it. Studying that certificate of licensing with _Ethan Coiro_ scrawled on it, he missed Ethan spotting him until a bottle of whiskey and one more glass clattered to the table in front of him.

“You look like shit,” said Ethan, sprawling back into his armchair with his legs thrown wide and half a smile on his face. “What brings you to the Whiskey Slipper?”

“I can’t believe you named it that.” Spencer watched as Ethan refilled his glass before filling his own. “You didn’t tell me you bought a club?”

“You didn’t ask.”

Fair point. Spencer looked down and knew he was about as good a friend as he was a husband. And they didn’t say anything, until he reached for his glass and Ethan made a slight noise. When Spencer looked back to his face, he saw it. The realisation and the shock, hiding the frustrated anger.

“What’s this?” Ethan asked, holding his hands up and trembling them for effect. “Here I was thinking you were quiet because you were shocked I’ve moved up in the world—then I see that? What’s that?”

“You know what it is.”

Ethan drained his glass, pouring another and pressing his lips to it before putting it down, hard. His eyes burned into Spencer’s skull, his mouth pulled tight with anger or horror, or both. “You’re _using_ again?”

Spencer said nothing, just felt the trembling become shaking that threatened to undo him from the top down, his eyes burning. He was ruining everything.

Everything was falling down.

“I need help,” he whispered.

Ethan said nothing, just stood and reached out his hand to help Spencer up. “I’m here,” he said. “Always have been.”

 

* * *

 

He stayed with Ethan that night, his cell switched off. The team would be worried, but he couldn’t face them. And he drank, fighting his demons with the bottle in his hand, until Ethan came out onto the porch and took it, sitting beside him.

“Why won’t you tell me what happened?” he asked, frustration clouding his voice. Spencer just shook his head; he would never bring Hankel into this world that Ethan had made for himself. Better that Ethan assume this was entirely Spencer’s failings, with no chance of excuses made. “I can’t help you if you won’t talk to me, Spence… where’s Elle?”

“She’ll leave,” Spencer heard himself slur. “She told me she would.”

“No shit, who’d blame her? You can’t _do_ this, not again—you have a family, damnit.”

“They should have been yours.” He hadn’t meant to say that. He was drunk. Drunk and stupid and not even sure that Ethan had heard that garbled admission. But it was true, wasn’t it? They _should_ have been. “You’d have been so much more to them… not me, I’m a disappointment. I disappoint you.”

“Spence…”

“You’re disappointed right now.” Spencer closed his eyes, felt himself sway. Wished he was high. Wished he was dead. Wished Hankel had killed him. Better the sudden grief than this slow burning of his life and family and career. “I hope she leaves. She needs to—I’m dangerous to them.”

Ethan’s hand snapped up to grip his bicep with biting force as Spencer almost pitched off the porch, startling Specky out of a nearby bush. “You’ve definitely had enough,” he said firmly, steadying him even though Spencer didn’t deserve his hand on him. “And stop being a dumbass, use that brain you’ve been neglecting for whatever reason. You’re not a danger to anyone but yourself.”

“I’m scared to have them around me,” Spencer admitted, feeling Ethan tense. “You don’t know what I dream of. What he showed me that I’m capable of. I killed him, you know—I killed him and he’s me, really, he’s what Ross could have done to me if I hadn’t been sent away. What Aaron could have been. Just a product of his shitty life.”

“Who?” Ethan stared at him, helplessly lost and Spencer too drunk and stupid to help him. “What the fuck are you going on about?”

“Statistically, abusers are those who were abused.” He was going to throw up, or pass out, but it was very, very important that he say this. “I’m scared, Eth, I’m so scared that I’m going to hurt them…” And he was gone, barely making it off the porch before retching into the bush that the cat had vacated, Ethan stopping him from falling into it. “I’ve trapped her,” he managed, between retching. “If I _do_ hurt them, where will she go? She’s stuck with me, you were right—”

“Shut up. Gross, you’re gross right now.” Ethan eased him up and let him fall, making sure he landed softly and crouching with twin cracks of his knees and a following grimace to make sure they were making eye-contact. “Listen to me right now, Spencer. You are not Connors. You will _never_ hurt anyone like he hurt you—and especially not Jack. I’ve seen you with him, you’re a fantastic dad. I… shit, Spence, I wish you were _my_ dad, instead of the asshole I got saddled with.”

“But if I do?” Spencer was determined that Ethan understand the danger, because only Ethan could help them if it happened. “She’s stuck—”

“She’s not stuck, she’s _Elle_. If she’s with you, it’s because she wants to be. When has she ever done something she doesn’t want to because of one of us?” Ethan slid his arm under Spencer’s, heaving him up with a grunt. “Come on, bed. You need to sleep, sloppy.”

Spencer let himself be carried, and spoke only once more. “Eth?”

“Mm?”

“If I don’t… if she has to…” He couldn’t bear it; some days, he wanted her gone, wanted to chase her out the door, just so he could be alone and she could be safe—other days he wanted to hold his family so close that they were never out his sight, sickened by the thought of Elle and Jack with nowhere to go and nowhere to call their own. Because she wouldn’t take the apartment, even if he walked out on her for her own good. She’d burn it down rather than take anything from him if he did that to her. “I…”

Ethan wasn’t looking at him now, leaning on the doorframe of the spare room with his gaze distant. “My home is always open,” he murmured, something shuttered slipping over his expression. “If the time comes that she needs it, she knows that.”

Spencer nodded, satisfied. If the worst happened, only he would be left floundering. He could still fix everything he’d broken—he’d been doing it wrong, he realised now in a kind of drunken clarity. All those letters, all those promises to do better—that was _wrong_. Hankel had showed him that.

The only way he could make amends for his past was by ensuring he wasn’t a part of their futures.

 

**November, 2007**

She waited until his birthday was over, spending Halloween with him. One last night of not being haunted, of dressing Jack as a train—his latest fascination—and taking him trick or treating together with one hand in either of his parents and so proud to be seen with them. At every house, he turned to them, at every candy, he toddled back to offer it to them first. If Spencer had ever doubted he loved his son, this night slammed that doubt home and called him out as an idiot. But the good night, as all good things did, passed.

Three days after Halloween, he came home to an empty apartment and the box that he kept the Diluadid in sitting on the bed. No note. She didn’t need to leave one. Like she’d told him so many times, the first time was a warning. _Get clean now or get used to this._

She’d come home if he cleaned up and the aching silence of the apartment scared him so much that he fully intended to. When he made himself dinner, he accidentally set out Jack’s plate, leaving it sitting there even after he realised as a reminder of being lonely. Before bed, he watched TV muted with the subtitles on despite Jack not being there to be woken. After his shower, he tiptoed down the hall and paused by the cheerful _Jack’s Room!_ sign sitting accusingly there.

It was horrifying.

At work the next day, he was careful not to go anywhere she was. Once, just once, he hesitated by Gideon’s office and thought about asking him for advice—he’d lost his wife, his son; he’d broken down and still come back. If anyone could help him chase the wanting from his veins in favour of his family, it was Gideon.

But he didn’t ask. He walked away. He decided to, on his own, get better.

Then he fucked up one last time.

It was two weeks into his forced seclusion. He’d told no one that Elle was gone, however temporarily, faking happiness with a tenacity that probably left him seeming manic. Worried eyes followed him everywhere. They were going to ask. They were going to know.

He did what he could to seem normal, even knowing as he did it that it was recursive behaviour—self-sabotage because he was afraid of failing when truly trying.

When his phone rang that night, he was high. _Elle calling._

He’d never picked it up so fast.

“So, bucko,” said her voice brightly, and he almost buckled from the relief from missing her. “Still tempting fate?”

“Come home,” he begged, and knew he was begging. He wasn’t too proud to think he wasn’t. All of his focus was hiding the slur to his voice, the fogginess—he needed her, wanted her, needed _Jack_. Needed noise and three seats at his table and normality and strength. If he had those, he could rise above this moment—this would be his final high. If only he had those.

She breathed in sharply and, for a shuddering heartbeat, he thought he was busted, but then she continued: “No, not yet. I want to—I really do. I miss you, somehow… as much as I hate you for forcing me into this.” Anger, there it was, but faded. She wanted to hate him and couldn’t find the will, her true rage locked away behind the memory of him in the hospital bed and those sickening three days of being lost. “But Mom needs some help right now—she’s sick. Do you want Jack?”

_Do you want Jack_ , she was asking, but he knew there were conditions: _if you’re sober, if you promise to stay sober, if you never fuck up again and force my hand because he’s only **our** son for as long as I allow it._

“Not just yet,” he said, closing his eyes and swallowing his spite. “Work is hectic. Maybe… this weekend.” It was too close. He’d still be teetered near withdrawal, but if he waited it would be _next_ weekend and that was too far away. Weakness won out, aided by his fear of being lonely. “If you’re sure you can’t all come home…”

“Don’t guilt me,” she snapped, tired, he could tell. “You pushed this, Spence. I’d still be there if you were trying.”

“I am trying. I went to therapy, I tried NA, I’m back at work…”

“I’ve seen you try. You tried after rehab—you tried after Ethan. If you were trying, you’d be better.” But, despite her exhausted anger, she huffed into the phone. “Fuck I wish I could give up on you sometimes.”

“Why don’t you?” He was too stoned for this, too stupid. And he needed to sober up. Narcan. There was Narcan, somewhere. Elle would be suspicious if she saw it was gone, but she wasn’t here to check for it. He’d kickstart his withdrawal, get it over with. Then him and Jack would be fine.

“Love makes us all stupid apparently.” She paused, seemingly waiting for a response he couldn’t voice. “Well, whatever. Final chance. If I see one hint of the drugs while you have our son, that’s it, Spencer. I’ll be gone. I promise you that.”

He believed her.

“I’m clean,” he lied, and planned to be.

 

* * *

 

The night wasn’t going well. Jack had whatever Elle’s mom had picked up and Elle wasn’t looking much better, hurrying away as soon as she’d done a cursory check of the bedroom for signs of drug use. They didn’t embrace and they didn’t kiss, on tenterhooks around each other.

“How are you going, Jackie boy?” Spencer asked his son when they were alone, feigning brightness. In reality, he wasn’t doing well. His body ached, his eyes gritty and sore and his skin searing hot. When he picked up his listless son, wincing at a hoarse cough that rattled from the two-year-old’s mouth, Jack felt icy to the touch despite the fever Elle had told Spencer she was keeping an eye out for. “Hmm. Not so well, huh, buddy?”

“Sick,” Jack grumbled, burrowing close. He was clammy and gross and Spencer decided, as a headache of his own began to kick in: the night would be best spent quietly watching movies.

He wasn’t withdrawing. He _wasn’t_. He couldn’t be.

But he worried that he was, seeing his hands tremble as he fixed his son a dinner that the boy would vomit up before eating. A bath followed that, both of them cranky and grim with each other. Spencer had barely finished towelling him dry before Jack had thrown up again, following that with a ‘sore belly’ that turned out to be diarrhoea.

“Fantastic,” Spencer complained, furious that _this_ was the promised night he was given with his son, going off to call Elle and ask advice.

“Seriously?” she snapped, voice scratchy and sounding pissed. “It’s just a virus, deal with it. Do you really need me holding your hand?”

Spencer scrubbed his forehead, his own head splitting. “You could have warned me. All I wanted was a good night—”

“Stop right there. You wanted a _good_ night, huh? Not dealing with a sick kid? Well, tough luck, Spence. This is parenting. I’ve had to deal with him for a week now and I’ve got Mom to look after as well—things don’t turn out nice because you think you’ve earned a fucking _reprieve_ from being a dad.”

She wasn’t being fair, but he wasn’t really being fair either. Instead of continuing what was clearly a fight she was itching to have, he dismissed the conversation with a sharp, “Fine,” and hung up.

“Water,” he said curtly, walking into the bedroom to find Jack sitting in more vomit, mostly water and bile by this point. “Drink this. I’ll get a towel.”

“Don’t be mad,” Jack whimpered, hands loose around his sippy cup and looking dangerously angelic with the flushed cheeks and pallid skin under the mop of ratty curls he’d inherited from his dad. But, when Spencer brushed his hand against his forehand, it was cool. He wasn’t burning up, and Spencer relaxed. “Daddy, I’m sick, not bad.”

It was a kick in the gut and Spencer almost buckled with it. “I know, buddy, just lay down,” he soothed, finding a damp face cloth and wondering if he should move Jack into his room for the night. But, before he could think it through, he walked back in to find Jack curled up, shirtless and pants less-with his vomit-y pyjamas on a shed pile on the floor. Eyes shut and already close to sleep. If he woke him, he’d have to deal with more whining, more misery, more rattling coughs that made his own chest ache with sympathy, and all Spencer wanted to do by this point was _sleep_. Exhaustion clawed at him, and he kicked the pyjamas aside, wiped his son’s face with the cloth, and crept out.

Just a nap. He’d nap, then he’d clean him up… after a nap.

But when he woke, dawn was stealing in through the curtains. Spencer rolled, groaning as his own gut cramped and his body lurching him forward, dizzy and staggering as he tried to get out of bed. Was this the drugs? Had something he taken stayed in his system? He needed to—

He stopped, staring at Jack’s open door. It was dawn.

Jack never stayed in his bed past dawn. Had he slept in, spent from his illness?

“Jacky?” he called, his voice grating out painfully from his dry throat and eyes spotting as he stumbled those few steps to the bedroom. “You awake…”

And he trailed off, because Jack wasn’t on the bed. Instead, he was flopped on the floor, eyes watching Spencer dully with his knees drawn close. The room stunk of waste and sickness and Spencer groaned, his temper already up despite the immediate guilt at not having heard Jack calling out for him.

“What are you doing on the floor?” he asked Jack, peering down at him. Jack shook his head slowly, eyes losing focus. He didn’t say anything, just began to shake, foot striking one of his toy trains and sending it slamming hard enough into the wall to leave a dent in the drywall.

It took until the seizure had fully hit before Spencer even registered what was happening.

 

* * *

 

“Stop filming us,” Spencer snapped, unable to bear the cell-phone in Elle’s hand. They were both dressed in the paper robes and hats of the infectious unit, every crinkle reminding Spencer that they didn’t know what was wrong, they couldn’t know what was wrong, that the rashes on his son’s body—no matter how healthy he looked, sleeping peacefully in the windowed room beside them—could be a sign that he was dying.

He hadn’t slept since the panicked scramble to call an ambulance, the frantic ride here, the terrified call to Elle. He hadn’t calmed down since she’d come racing in, barely holding him upright as he’d tried to tell her everything at once, sick with fear and almost tipping over on the spot.

“Don’t tell me what to do,” she snapped, but her eyes were bright as she lowered her phone. He felt sick. She was filming Jack through the thick window because this could be it, this could be— “And stop panicking. They don’t know it’s meningitis.”

“He seized and I wasn’t there,” Spencer groaned, tipping his head into his hands and fighting the coughs that rattled him further. They weren’t allowed in—once the rash had been noticed and Jack rushed to the infectious unit, a cursory examination of both parents had pronounced them too ill to risk exposing Jack to them further. So he could be in there, getting sicker, alone…

“Yes, he did,” said Elle coldly, and walked away with her arms pulled tight around herself.

He deserved it.

“Mr. and Mrs. Reid?” asked a doctor, coming towards them with his own facemask firmly in place. They stood, desperate enough for whatever he was going to say that neither corrected him—he was doctor and Elle preferred to use her maiden name, despite having taken his. “It’s not meningitis. Jack is going to be fine.”

If he felt anything other than relief in that moment, covering his face and stepping away to try and control his reaction, it was a desperate rush of _sick_ as Elle cried out as well and moved to hug him. He dodged her hug, trembling and ill and knowing he was going to throw up. She stared at him. And he knew, he had to tell her. He waited until the doctor had left to organise their reunion with their son—who was going to be okay, but almost hadn’t been, and he knew at least _some_ of his weakness had to have been because of the lingering aftereffects of the drugs. Otherwise he’d have known. There was no way he couldn’t have known.

So he told her: “I’m still using, and that’s why he was alone.”

He deserved this.

 

**December, 2007**

He spent Christmas with a bottle of bourbon and all of his regrets, waking up once curled up on the floor of Jack’s room with the broken door sign laying shattered next to him. It hurt to stay in there, so he staggered up and closed the door: it would remain closed from now on.

The bed on the couch welcomed him, as though no years at all had passed between now and those lonely times after Ethan had left. He found another bottle, another drink, and drowned out the sound of carols outside.

He was clean and planned to remain so. The drugs had taken too much from him, even if they’d given him the clarity to realise that Elle and Jack needed anything other than him.

On his cell, still open because if he closed it he’d have to deal with the other messages lurking:

**Ethan: I can’t believe you did this. Why aren’t you coming after them?**

It didn’t deserve an answer. Ethan knew why. Everyone knew why—those that knew he was alone. The team didn’t. He couldn’t admit his failure to them, even if they saw it in his face and bearing.

Elle called eight times and he let each and every one go straight to voicemail, laying on the couch and listening to her voice:

_Answer the phone, Spencer. Your son wants to say Merry Christmas to you._

_What the fuck? What could you possibly be fucking doing that’s more important than your son?_

_Please answer. We’re worried… Ethan is going to drive up and check on you if you don’t answer, I swear. And if you’ve done something dumb I swear, I’ll hunt you down just to kill you again._

He responded to that last one, a pert message to Ethan just reading, **Leave me alone.**

And in reply he received, **Fuck you.**

Good.

Now they knew there was no coming back from this.

He woke in the morning to a mess of his own creation, and a letter he didn’t remember writing. He read it, twice, and then he tore it up and threw it out.

No excuses.

This was just how life had to be from now on, and the sooner he came to terms with that, the better.

 

> _Elle,_
> 
> _One day you’ll see that this is the right thing for all of us. I was wrong when I said I could do better. Maybe I can, in some small way, but I’m always going to be the same person inside—the person who tries to escape stress with self-harm. How long until that self-harm turns outward? Before I become Aaron’s father, all the hatred and anger that’s still inside me twisting who I am until I respond by continuing the cycle. Sometimes, when I’m weak and withdrawing and Jack doesn’t realise—sometimes I’m nothing but sick and he’s begging me for attention, calling my name constantly, wanting to show me every wonderful thing in his idyllic world—I’ve felt hatred for him. I’ve thought of pushing him away or screaming at him to stop, that no one cares how bright a mind can be or how promising a child. When he’s cried and cried because he’s sick or angry and that’s the only way he can communicate his helplessness, I’ve wanted to shake him until he stops. See? See how angry I still am? I hate him because I see myself in him, and I love him because he’s not me. I’d do anything to stop him becoming me._
> 
> _If he stays, if you stay, one day I might give into these dark desires. I don’t think they’re an innate part of me. I’ve never been violent or cruel, but I could be. Ross showed me that. So did Hankel—I don’t think he was a cruel child, but he became a broken man. If there’s a distance between us, I can fight it. I can stop myself from becoming them._
> 
> _I can keep you both safe. I promised you after Garner—promised you that I would keep you safe and I am, this is me fulfilling that promise. You’ll see. Life will be better now._
> 
> _I’m nothing like my father because he walked out on me, and I hate him for that._
> 
> _Maybe Jack will feel the same about me_
> 
> _I hope so._
> 
> _I still love you both, and always will, and that’s why you have to go._
> 
> _I wish it could be otherwise, but I’m not sorry. I’ll never be sorry for your safety._
> 
> _Merry Christmas._


	64. Epistolary, 2008-11

**Results of drug test re: case #447588**

Enclosed is the requested results of the drug tests undertaken by your client.

In summary, no recent drug use was detected.

 

* * *

**4650**

**Kirchner Group, LLC**

April 24, 2008

** By Federal Express **

**Privileged Attorney/Client Communication**

Re: Custodial rights and visitation for the child Jackson Elliot Reid

 

Dear Dr. Reid,

While I appreciate the candour with which you have approached the arrangement of custodial rights between you and the other party, I must advise against your wish to withhold information of pertinence to the case at hand. I am seeking your permission to present the results of drug testing and your consistent engagement with mental health services since the time of your separation in order to achieve the most favourable outcome with regards to access to your child.

Please review the information I have enclosed and sign off on your agreement to present it at our next meeting with the separating party and her legal counsel. In addition, if you have remembered any new information, please include that as well. Even information that you feel is insignificant may be important at a later date.

I wish to assure you that your privacy will be safeguarded regardless of your decision. If you have any questions about privacy, please do not hesitate to contact me.

 

* * *

 

**Elle**

Wed, 04/02

**> what the hell was that today. Do you even want to see your son?**

Thurs, 04/10

**> why are you letting them do this? they’re going to rule against you??**

**> answer my calls. Don’t ignore me.**

Tues, 04/20

**> I hope you’re happy now. You get to be alone.**

**Ethan**

Tues, 04/20

**> You lied up there. I know you did. You’re not still using.**

**> I wish you could see what you’re doing to them.**

**> I wish you cared.**

**Error 411: the number you have contacted via SMS is unavailable. Possible causes of this are as follows: The number you are trying to reach is out of the service zone, this number has been disconnected, or you have been blocked by this number. <**

* * *

**Full Parenting Custody Agreement Between**

**Spencer Reid (father)**

**&**

**Elle Reid (née Greenaway) (mother)**

THIS AGREEMENT, made and entered into by and between Elle Reid (hereinafter called ‘Wife’ or ‘Mother’) and Spencer Reid (hereinafter called ‘Husband’ or ‘Father’);

WHEREAS, the parties to this Agreement were married on the third day of November, 2006; and

WHEREAS, the parties separated on or about December, 2007, and are now living in a bona fide state of separation, and acknowledge that there exists no chance of reconciliation; and

WHEREAS, there is one child born as issue of this marriage, to wit: Jackson Reid, born 5th February, 2006, age 2 years; and

WHEREAS, the parties desire to settle all matters of custody, visitation, child support, alimony, equitable division of property, attorney’s fees, and all other claims each may have against the other arising from the marital relationship; and WHEREAS, each party is acting freely and voluntarily, under no compulsion or duress, and in consideration of the present income, earning capacity, and financial circumstance of each of the parties;

NOW THEREFORE, in consideration of the premises and the mutual promises herein contained and for other good and valuable consideration, the receipt of which is hereby acknowledged, the parties do agree as follows:

**The parties shall continue to live separate and apart, each being free to choose his or her place of residence and employment, and each shall be free of interference, molestation, authority and control, direct or indirect, by the other as fully as if sole and unmarried to each other.**

**The residence of the child, Jackson Reid (now 2 years of age) will remain solely with that of his mother until such a time as the father approaches the court with evidence of his suitability to engage with his child once more, with the mother’s full agreement – upon this, a new agreement or an addendum to this one will be duly added.**

**Both parents agree that that it will be in their child’s best interest if physical proximity is not maintained and that the father live entirely separate from that of his wife and child. Both mother and father agree that contact will not be maintained with each other without prior agreement by both parties that the contact is welcomed.**

**Both parents also agree to handle holidays and special events such as Christmas and birthdays cooperatively, with access to the child by the father only allowed under full supervision of the mother.**

**The mother will be individually responsible for Jackson’s day to day expenses, including food, clothes, toys, and entertainment, due to the large distance and limited contact between father and mother. The father requests, and has been approved, to pay 60% of the costs incurred on utility bills and 80% of costs incurred on insurance premiums. In the event that Jackson begins schools, the father will also cover 100% of the costs of school fees and extra-curricular activities, his future situation allowing.**

**Each of the parties has understood and agreed to all the terms charted out in this agreement.**

**20 th April, 2008**

* * *

May 15, 2008

Reid,

You’ve either blocked us or changed your number, I don’t care which. So here, have a letter. You like letters, right? Maybe we’d have worked out better if we communicated solely by letter.

I’ve left the FBI and we’re leaving DC. If you want to see your son one last time before we go, call me. I know you remember my number.

You will be visiting on birthdays and Christmases. Just because you pulled that shit off up there doesn’t mean you get to stop being a dad. You don’t quit on us that easy. And not even you’d get fucking high on Christmas.

If you don’t contact us, we’ll see you in December.

Have a great life.

Greenaway.

 

* * *

 

**Ethan**

26 Dec, 2008

**> Where are you? Jack’s looking for you and Elle.**

**Be there in a sec. <**

**> … this is only going to complicate things.**

**We didn’t mean to. <**

**Stay out of it. <**

**Elle**

02 Jan, 2009

**> Jack loved having you around. You could come more often you know.**

**You know that’s not a good idea. <**

**> I don’t understand you.**

* * *

**Ethan**

27 Dec, 2009

**> You need to stop doing this. Don’t come here and fuck with her like this.**

**You said it yourself—since when has Elle done something she doesn’t want to? She’s fine. I’m fine. It doesn’t mean anything. <**

**> Really? It’s just sex? Because I remember you saying that and then knocking her up.**

**> Yeah didn’t think you’d reply to that. Stop making her think there’s something where there’s nothing. It’s crappy and cruel and you keep leaving me here to pick up the pieces when you leave.**

 

03 Jan, 2010

**> I want you to know that Jack’s been crying for three hours straight now because he thought you were going to stay this time. Still doesn’t mean anything?**

* * *

**Payment received: $2200.00 on the 1 st September, 2010 from S. Reid**

**Elle**

**> this is too much. what the hell is this for? You’ve already covered costs for this quarter**

**> I don’t need your fucking charity**

**Buy Jack something with it then. It’s not charity, it’s going to my wife towards raising my son. <**

**> YOU COULD BE RAISING YOUR SON.**

**> I want a divorce**

**If that’s what you want. <**

**> Fuck you.**

 

* * *

 

Feb, 10th, 2011

 

Der Dadde

We wen to See the trein. Tere was a dog at the trein. I patte the dog and Mommy did too. Wen you come we will see the trein too pleas.

Love lots and lots Jack and also I likemy present and have been gud.

 

**Elle**

**> You’ll pay shipping costs on a complete encyclopedia of trains but you won’t send him a letter? Priorities, asshole.**

**Did he like it? <**

**> He’s FIVE. He can’t even pick it up.**

**> Yes, he likes it. He sleeps with the stupid thing.**

**: ) <**

* * *

03 May, 2011

 

Dear Dr. Reid,

You might not remember me. My name is Alice Connors.

I really need to talk to you. It’s about my Dad, Ross Connors.

I think you probably know why.

 

* * *

 

Dear Alice,

I do remember you.

Where would you like to meet?


	65. Alice Connors

Alice was fifteen now. Somehow that, more than anything, drove home the relentless passage of time. Twenty-eight years old and feeling every bit his age, Spencer picked at the crumbly muffin on his plate and wondered what he was doing here, sitting across from this child in her expensive school uniform and over-done make-up.

He couldn’t help but profile her. The forced silence, the terror in her face, the shades of misery in those hazel eyes that were older than they should have been. She was uncomfortable with the make-up, continually smudging it on her mug or with the back of her hand as though forgetting it was there. Her hair was tied back in a tight ponytail that she kept touching, pulled too tight for comfort. Between her legs, her schoolbag sat, but it was a Saturday. The uniform, the make-up, the careful distance between them; she was putting on a show for him.

“How are your studies?” he asked, needing to break the silence, in any kind of way.

“You don’t actually care about that,” she responded, sipping the cappuccino he’d bought her and leaving a foamy line across her top lip. His heart faltered a little, hurting at the reminder of how young she was still. Older than she had been; younger than he’d expected.

Old enough to be hurt.

He was scared for her. Around the handle of his mug, his hand was white. Whatever she was here to say, he didn’t know if he wanted to hear it.

Abusers escalate.

“What do I care about?” he asked cautiously, feeling every bit as though he was facing down an unsub across an interrogation table. Just as on edge, just as important that he tread so very carefully.

Alice just studied him with those hazel eyes, her expression guarded. “You were my dad’s student, yeah?”

He nodded. Around them, the busy street buzzed, the midday sun hammering down. People continued on with their lives as though his hadn’t paused here on the cusp, facing down a nightmare that had cast a shadow across what felt like his entire existence. He wasn’t naïve enough to miss that this was an important moment. Everything felt pressed into stark clarity, the last few numb years being shown as him merely sleep-walking through life, eyes shut and mind refusing to deal with anything beyond his immediate context. No thought of Ross, no thought of that night all those years ago when he’d been the same age as Alice was now. No thought of his pain or his shattered confidence; just curling up small and letting time trickle by.

For the first time in what felt like years, he thought of Aaron.

He wished he was here.

And Alice sharpened the moment: “Did he ever hurt you?”

Two choices: one, walk away. Get up and go. Keep sleep-walking through life with his mind closed to everything he’d fought so viciously in the past. Comfortable mediocrity, the man with the broken marriage and estranged son and wife, just another Bureau statistic.

Two: stay. Listen.

Tell his story, if that was what she was here for. Face it.

Was he ready for that? After running for so long?

“Dr. Reid?”

Out of time. He had to choose now. He took another breath, this one more alive than the last. A child laughed nearby; people chattered and lived and moved freely around them. Alice was pale under her make-up, shrinking back. A child with no real idea of how much he’d been hurt, and that was good. She didn’t know. She _shouldn’t_ know. He envied her ignorance.

He said, “Yes,” and waited for the fallout.

There wasn’t any. As though it had been waiting an obscene amount of time for him to wake up and begin moving again, the universe immediately rewarded this small step forward. Alice simply nodded, her face relaxing minutely. Grief and horror and anger and the briefest flash of disbelief raced across her features, before she leaned down and unzipped her bag, pulling forth a newspaper. He took it when she offered it to him, unfolding it and studying the page.

_Celebrated academic refused bail on sex charges._

“Late last year, my father was caught fucking a kid from the youth group he volunteers at,” Alice said with savage enunciation. Spencer winced at every word. “The parents went batshit even though the kid said he wanted it. Before long, everyone knew. My friends hated me, I had to leave my school. Someone attacked my mom on the street. And then people started talking—more people started coming forward. It ruined our lives.”

Her tone was low and dangerous, spine and fire. It was like being snarled at by Elle, back when they weren’t afraid of clashing against each other without causing permanent damage. Nowadays, when he fought with Elle, it was in measured jibes and sly insults, cutting deep right to the core of where they knew the other was weak. Each trying to one-up the other on damage caused.

“How many?” he had to ask, despite his voice cracking.

She heard the crack, her face losing its furious shape and crumbling into misery. Their drinks were going cold. Suddenly, she was a child again facing something she didn’t understand done by someone she loved, and not all the victims were faceless to her.

“I don’t know,” she lied. “Maybe, four? I guess.” But her gaze avoided his. “He’s going to prison. There’s no way he’s not. And I’m always going to be the girl with the rapist for a father… what did he do to you?”

Spencer blinked. That wasn’t something he was willing to tell a teenager, especially not someone so closely entwined with the assailant. There was facing her father’s crimes, and there was hearing them in explicit detail. Why would she want that?

He profiled.

The anger. The grief.

Being driven enough to hunt down a boy from her father’s past, despite his name never being connected to the case. “You know I’m not going to talk about that,” he said instead, watching her mouth pull thin and her cheeks flush. “Why did you come to me? I’m no one. What happened to me happened too long ago to matter…” Not true, not really, but a comforting lie.

“He’s always talked about you. Every time I did well at school or did anything smart, he’d say ‘oh just like Spencer’ or ‘I knew Spencer was a good influence’. There’s a photo of you in his study.” Alice didn’t even hesitate as she slammed his past home, bringing him right back to being fifteen and alone except for a man who professed to care for him. Stomach lurching and regretting eating the half of his muffin he’d managed, Spencer shuddered and tried to hide his revulsion. “You know, I think he cared more about you than he ever did me… I used to sit in his study sometimes and glare at that stupid photo, hating you so much. Why did you get his attention when I didn’t? Well, I guess I know now. Lucky, aren’t I? But, you know, I’ve been doing a lot of reading on sexual predators.”

He winced, but wasn’t surprised. He’d have done the same in her situation. Had pretty much done the same—look at his career.

“They have types, usually specific. Age ranges or appearances. And most of the kids who came forward or who I think he might have hurt who haven’t come forward, like you or… well, you, you all look kinda alike. And you want to know the worst bit?”

“Alice…” He wanted her to stop, take a breath. Anything to stop the dangerous glassiness of her eyes spilling over, as she sniffed and bit at her bottom lip, smearing the lipstick that wasn’t her colour.

“No, shh, please. Let me talk. Once I got over hating you, I started thinking—maybe he didn’t love you so much and me so little for a reason, maybe there _was_ a reason. And I was so so sure—I’ve always loved mysteries and stupid stories for kids—I thought that you were my _brother_. You had to be, right? He kept all this stuff of you and your picture and just kept… and you look just like me? Look.”

Frozen and still trapped in the stark clarity of this conversation, regretting ever answering her letter, he did nothing but watch as she tore her bag open and dumped the contents onto the table, almost knocking her half-full mug over. Papers and newspapers and folders spilled out, shuffled wildly as she searched for what she wanted: three photos.

Spencer stared. The first was a teenager, the picture old. “Mom,” said Alice, laying it out. “Me.” Next was a picture of her, as she was maybe a year or two ago. “You.”

It was him. His picture. Shown smiling awkwardly, standing stiffly with Ross’s arm around him and an award held between them. Spencer stared at that photo and considered throwing up. Then, he pushed that aside and really looked.

They could have been a family, if someone ignored the subtle differences in facial structure and eye shape. Siblings, definitely.

“I was so sure you were my brother, I actually started looking for you. This was before the cops came and took everything away, so I have some stuff… well, like this.”

He took the yellowed paper she offered him and only had to glance at it to recognise it. In the childish handwriting was the story was Halcyon and Mine, the tale him and Aaron had told to pass those dreary days between summers. A story he hadn’t thought about in years.

“May I?” he asked huskily, and began looking through at her slow nod. She’d pulled her father’s life apart, it was all in here. Fifteen and she’d fearlessly faced her family’s darkest secrets. Here was paperwork about internal transfers between colleges, here were reports Spencer had written, here were photos of youth groups and sporting teams Ross had taken up coaching within the past few years. Escalation. Spencer had given him a taste and he’d sought it out further.

“I thought you were my brother,” Alice whispered, and now she was crying. “I never thought for a second you were someone he _hurt_.” He put down the story on top of the papers, passing her a napkin to stop the run of cheap mascara. “If I’d known, I’d have done something earlier, stopped him sooner—”

Sooner. That word clicked home. Spencer shuddered once more, a sensation that worked like an electric shock right down his spine, and spoke: “He wasn’t caught with that child. You found out. You told someone.”

Alice curled tight in the chair. People were looking at them, but her voice was low enough that he doubted they could hear: “I went to his parents, told them where to go. The dad broke my dad’s nose. He should have killed him I wish he’d killed him.”

“How did you find out?” Slipping into agent mode: just an agent asking questions pertinent to the case. Without conscious thought, he began looking through the papers she’d amassed, more carefully.

“I… I don’t know.”

That was a lie. He paused, eyes flicking up to her and seeing, again, the grief. The anger.

“I guess I just started suspecting. Things made sense once I thought about it, you know? Like, he’s so insistent that I… I don’t know, he likes telling me to cuddle him and stuff and it’s just normal family stuff, until it isn’t. It’s normal until there’s _weirdness_ behind it and my friends thought it was weird. He’d get me to sit on his lap since I was a little girl and then, suddenly, one day he got real mad about it. Screamed at me for it—saying it was wrong and weird and I was like, what? Okay, I guess I was a bit old, but he’d never… he _asked_. And it was great how involved he was with my friends because, like, most people have parents who are real distant and I didn’t and my friends loved that if they came over he’d play in the pool with us or stay up and watch movies and then—”

They needed to leave. Her voice was rising, the tears coming faster, and he didn’t know what to do. He wished Elle was here. For the first time in a long time, he really needed Elle.

But he didn’t leave. He didn’t ask her to go somewhere more private—he couldn’t anyway, she was fifteen and he a grown man and he wouldn’t test the tentative trust between them.

He should have brought JJ.

There was a photo in his hands that he hadn’t even looked at because, below it, was a newspaper clipping with a photo. Of Ross, he assumed, despite the coat across his face to stop the reporters from catching a glimpse of him—but that wasn’t the important part. What his gaze had landed on was the man standing behind Ross, watching him walk to his car with an impassive look on his, even through the grainy greyscale newspaper photo, handsome face. Spencer knew that face.

Standing on the steps of the courthouse behind Ross Connors was Aaron Hotchner.

And Alice had stopped talking suddenly, her words cutting off with a pained gasp. For a bizarre second, he thought it was the picture of Aaron that had done it, the same way it had rendered him voiceless and wordless and shocked. But it wasn’t. When he looked to her, it was the other photo that her eyes were locked on, the one he was holding. Alice, and a boy. Maybe seven or eight, sitting in a sandbox together and cheesing it for the camera with huge, wide grins.

“Oh,” said Spencer, his heart sinking.

“He’s dead now,” Alice mumbled, tipping her face forward as though trying to hide being a curtain of hair. “Shot himself with his dad’s gun and I never knew why. He didn’t even tell me he was… he didn’t tell me. Just suddenly he wasn’t at school one day and then they called an assembly and I never knew why, except, I guess now I do. We were fighting before that. He was angry all the time, especially at me.” She sniffed wetly, and he looked away so she wouldn’t be ashamed of her tears. “And he was my best friend since we were kids, but now he’s dead and if we’d never met, he wouldn’t be. That’s why I came looking for you. I don’t know the names of the other kids Dad messed with, but I’ve always known yours. Since I can remember, I’ve known yours. And I… I wanted to see if you were okay. To make sure you weren’t like Sam.”

Spencer stared at the photo, at the kids with their whole lives ahead of them, except for the fact that they were going to crash into the same roadblock he had.

If he’d gone to the police, spoken up, done _something_ —but he couldn’t fall into those kinds of thoughts now. That wouldn’t help him, or Alice.

He told the truth.

“I’m okay,” he said to her, and reached out to take her hand. She let him. “Are you?”

A shrug was his answer. “Maybe,” she mumbled. “But I want to see him burn… I want to watch them put him away. He’s not my dad, not anymore, he’s just the man who killed my best friend. And I want to watch…” Despite her harsh words, he doubted she was as unbothered as she was trying to seem, her entire body trembling with the effort to hold back helpless tears. “But I can’t go alone and Mom… Mom won’t. She won’t even talk about him. She doesn’t _care_. I know you probably don’t want to or can’t, god, I know, but… if you can? If you can face it, will you come with me? When it comes time for them to… to put him away for what he’s done, can you be there? Not just for me and for Sam but for yourself as well, and what he did to you too.”

Spencer said nothing for the longest time, just stared down at the table and what was scattered there. If he went, he’d have to face Ross again. He’d have to face the gruesome details of what had been done. And it likely wouldn’t just be one hearing, it would be many, over months and months of painstaking picking apart of the years of damage done. And Aaron would be there, maybe, possibly. Somehow. A small part of him whispered _I knew he’d be a great lawyer_ while the larger part of him said that that was dangerously assumptive.

“Can I keep this?” he asked instead of answering, picking up the story he hadn’t known he’d lost. Alice nodded. “I don’t know if I can yet, Alice. I just don’t know.”

But he left her his card, and a promise that he’d consider it.


	66. Loose Ends – Sep, 2012

Aaron put Ross away.

Spencer would never, ever forget that moment. Watching the verdict fall— _guilty_ —listening to the judge slamming home the sentence as he tore into every excuse Ross had ever hidden behind, every lie he’d ever told about love and desire. Repeating what Aaron had stated with a passion behind his voice that only Spencer knew the reason behind: that Ross had hurt children, that they were _children_. That what he’d done was rape, absolutely. That he’d taken love and perverted it. That he’d ruined lives, taken lives.

There wasn’t a person in that courtroom on that final day who hadn’t been ready for Ross’ blood by the time Aaron was done. He was a fantastic lawyer, just as Spencer had always known he would be. And he’d used his skills to put away the man who’d been a dark spot on Spencer’s horizon for as long as he could remember.

It was strange. Nothing had really changed on this day, not even with the brief nanosecond Spencer had spent standing in front of Aaron and thanking him, mere inches from the boy he’d loved both first and the most. Thinking of a storm and a hand held out to him that was childish and young and strong, despite the man now being grown. No, nothing had really changed, except everything.

For the first time since he was fifteen years old, there was absolutely no threat of Ross knocking on his door and bringing the nightmare back to life. Spencer hadn’t had his day in court, he’d never—thankfully—stood in front of Aaron and told the world what had been done to him. Instead, he’d sat in the crowd with Alice holding his hand and he’d watched that part of his life come to a close. The dark, fearful part that only now he was realising had affected every choice he’d made since. While he didn’t think he’d consciously worried about Ross coming for him, breathing was easier in a world where the option had been taken away.

He sat on his balcony with the sharp-fresh wind of an oncoming storm clearing his lungs and his mind, and he considered being free. Poison lanced from a festering wound, and now it was over.

Then, he went for his laptop and began googling.

The storm had hit by midday the next day, and Spencer was in the middle of it. In plain sight and soaking wet despite his battered umbrella, he pulled it close and peered up at the bank of offices overhead where the law firm Aaron worked for was located. He could go in. Go in, shake the water from his shoes, introduce himself. _Hi, I’m Dr. Reid. Is Aaron Hotchner in?_ Or maybe, _Hi, I’m Spencer, is Aaron here? We’re old friends._

And when he saw him, what would he say? It felt ridiculous to stand here in the rain with the gloomy day closing around him, the people around him invisible and unimportant in the haze, and plan a conversation he might not even have. Why would Aaron be interested in speaking to him, a faded junkie with a broken past?

But that wasn’t true. That wasn’t who he was anymore.

But was he far enough removed from that man that he was ready to let Aaron back in?

He didn’t know. There was no easy answer. No perfect way to begin a conversation that could change the both of them.

Then the doors opened. Aaron stepped out, pausing under the shelter of the opening and scanning the street without seeing Spencer standing there. The moment paused, and lingered.

Spencer thought of saying, _Hi, it’s me, Spencer. We were friends once. Can we be again?_

He thought of saying, _I’ve missed you._

Or maybe, _I have so much I need to tell you_.

Instead, he stood in the storm and said nothing as Aaron strode away, hidden by the rain and never once looking back.


	67. This One Last Time

When he found out Aaron had joined the FBI, it was a shock.

When the team began looking for a replacement for Morgan, it seemed obvious.

“I have this file,” Rossi began, tipping his hip against Reid’s desk and holding it out to him. “Curious file, really. He doesn’t have enough years in the Bureau to be here, but he’s was a damn crackshot federal prosecutor before that and well, it seems someone here wants my eye on him.”

Reid hid his guilty flush behind studying Aaron’s file intently. “He’d be a good choice,” he said as an agent and a profiler, not someone who was dizzy with the possible idea of them working together. Honestly, on a personal level, it was a mistake. But, professionally? They’d be idiots not to snap up the man with the highest academic score coming out of the Academy since, well, Reid. And with the added benefit of scoring highly in every physical test as well.

“He would be,” said Rossi, watching him carefully. “I’ve seen him in action, years ago…”

Reid knew what case he was referring to. How could he not? It had been an unspoken secret that Rossi had been at Connors’ sentencing, but everyone knew. “Will you pass the file onto Emily?”

And Rossi grinned and said, “Well, I’d be an idiot not to.”

And that led to this moment.

“Aaron Hotchner, the team. The team, Aaron Hotchner.” Emily introduced Aaron like it didn’t really matter, as though the man standing beside her was just another agent. Reid stared as Aaron scanned the room with his expression an unfamiliar mask, eyes flickering right past Reid without pausing. Then, they darted back.

The mask slipped, surprise showing on his features, just a hint.

“… Who you appear to know,” Emily finished, now staring curiously at Reid. Beside him, Rossi was grinning. And Aaron just looked shocked, but subtly so. If Reid hadn’t known him so well, he’d have missed it.

“We’ve met,” Reid managed, holding his hand out. It hung between them awkwardly, blood creeping to his cheeks as he noted the suit, the hair, the tie, the _everything_. This was a problem, but one he could deal with. Their relationship was strictly professional, absolutely. Completely.

Until Aaron took his hand and returned the handshake, his grip firm and warm.

Shaken, Reid mumbled. “Welcome to the team, Agent Hotchner.”

He knew this was the start of something.


	68. Eucatastrophe, 2015

**April, 2015**

Aaron was exactly who Reid had known he would grow to be. Focused and intense and with an intelligence he didn’t doubt or hide anymore, facing down unsubs and media personnel and law enforcement with the same easy charisma offset by a commanding professionalism. He wore his suits like a second skin, so at home in them that Reid started doubting his old memories of Aaron as being equally at home in jeans or slacks or nothing at all, catching himself watching Aaron at the photocopier one day and trying to picture whether the body hidden under that perfectly ironed shirt had changed or not. With the team, he slotted in as though he’d never not been a part of them, easily stepping into their ranks. But he was cautious with them, and his eyes followed Reid when he didn’t know Reid was watching him. They seemed to take it in turns, watching each other while trying to pretend they weren’t. Reid knew the others would notice soon, if they hadn’t already, and he headed it off at the start.

“I need to talk to you,” he said, closing the door behind him as he sidled into the office.

“Oh boy,” Emily began, “never a good sign when you close the door. What have you done?”

Reid shifted uncomfortably. He’d been naïve. Aaron was a great choice for their team, and he stood by that, but he’d underestimated how concentrated his reaction to the man would be. It wouldn’t affect his work, he was sure, nor Aaron’s—but it would affect him. He wanted to relearn this Aaron, beyond the structured man they saw every day at work. He wanted to learn whether Aaron still laughed at the jokes he’d used to, whether he enjoyed the same books, if he could still be coaxed to smile in that rare, shy way with all his features softening. Reid could see where Aaron was the same—he wanted to know where he was now different.

He’d told Aaron they shouldn’t flaunt what they were, but that didn’t mean that he didn’t want to privately relearn him.

“Aaron and I—” he managed, but Emily held up her hand.

“Aaron?” she queried, eyes innocently wide. “Not Hotch?” Reid swallowed. Nodded. Winced as she sighed, “Is this going to be something I should have known before I hired him?”

“I met him when we were nine,” Reid admitted, seeing her startle slightly, eyes focused. That hadn’t been what she’d been expecting. “We entered into a relationship at fourteen that ended due to events in my life—” Now and only now did her gaze soften, sympathy clouding the surprise: “—and began again for several years in our early twenties. But it ended, we haven’t been anything to each other for twelve years. It’s in the past.”

“I would have appreciated knowing this before,” was all she said, following with, “but it wouldn’t have changed my decision. Is it really in the past, Spencer?”

Uh oh. First name.

“I don’t know,” he replied honestly. There would likely be repercussions to this answer, but he charged forward with it anyway: the past eight years had shown him that being alone wasn’t everything it had been cracked up to be. And Aaron himself, in the act of putting Connors away, had shown him that moving forward didn’t mean leaving his past behind. It didn’t mean losing what Rhosgobel had meant to them both. “I don’t think I can answer that yet.”

She nodded thoughtfully as he waited for her decree. If she said to him not to follow this path he was teetering on, this reaching out to a man he’d thought he’d lost, he would have no choice but to obey that. Aaron’s career was too new here, too fragile, to risk like this, and his own was too valuable to him. But, all she said was, “Be careful,” and he knew she was thinking of how he’d been after Elle: small and broken and lost in a way he hadn’t been since his teenaged years.

He’d learned then that healing wasn’t a one-way street. Sometimes it was climbing a mountain made of shards of glass, sliding painfully down every time a single handhold was missed. Sometimes it was pausing to wait for wounds to knit and bones to heal.

Sometimes it was letting someone reach down and pull you up that last little length, not facing the climb alone.

“I’m always careful,” he joked, and tried not to smile at the biting sarcasm in her answering laugh.

 

* * *

 

He wasn’t being careful. Not even a little. Whether or not he’d intended on it, whatever hopes he’d had of keeping this professional or distant or even just friendly, it faded in the face of actually having Aaron within reach and _responsive._ If he’d been dismissive or distant, it would have been easier—he would have known what to do with that. He’d spent the last eight years dodging serious relationships because he feared opening himself up to people he didn’t know innately, who he didn’t trust. He couldn’t risk the ferocious tumble of co-dependency like what had happened with Aaron, and he feared the slow growth of love he’d created with Elle. When he thought of being wild and young and alive with love and feeling everything possible encompassed in that one small world, he thought of Aaron and how gladly he’d have once burned for him. When he’d taken small risks to reaching out, flirting or going on reluctant dates, in the corner of his mind he remembered Elle and how that burning had been fatal for them.

But Aaron wasn’t a stranger. He wasn’t Elle, who Reid had loved but not enough to save them, and he wasn’t any of the faceless men or women Reid had dated since then. He was Aaron, the man who’d grown from the boy from Rhosgobel.

One time, a long time ago, Reid had stood in front of Ethan and declared that Elle would never be damaged by him, that she was immune to his flaws. That had been wrong, so very wrong, and Reid knew why now. Love wasn’t one-way, and neither was vulnerability. The mere act of becoming close to someone would mean that they were vulnerable to each other. At the time, neither him nor Elle had had the maturity or the understanding to weather the bad times together instead of one trying to steady the other and crumbling under the weight of uneven expectations. And, before that, neither had Aaron—what person of twenty-two could ever have withstood what Reid had asked him to withstand?

But that was then, and this was now: texting Aaron Hotchner with all the wisdom of the years upon them and still too stupid to realise that this might be a mistake. There was no way this would end in a comfortable friendship or easy acquaintanceship, they were far to entwined in each other’s histories for that. They both knew that this opening of the floodgates between them would only result in the beginning of something, or the destruction of everything else.

And still knowing all of this, Reid responded to Aaron’s texts that weren’t friendly or easy or small. Knowing they were taking the first steps towards relearning each other and fearing that even as he craved it.

**_> You’ve never intimidated me_ **

**_> Don’t ever make yourself smaller for my benefit_ **

**_> Please_ **

There it was. Lined out neatly with all the spaces between waiting for Reid to read into them. _You’ve never intimidated me_ —not even when we were kids and you were smarter than everyone else around. _Don’t ever make yourself smaller for my benefit_ —not again, because I couldn’t bear to watch that once more. _Please_ —and Reid knew he wasn’t imagining the strength it took to type that one, pleading word.

He responded similarly with something that cost him just as much to type, his thoughts whirling and with no idea of what he actually wanted to say. It wasn’t careful. It was probably a mistake.

It was also probably inevitable.

**_May I call you? S.R. <_ **

Aaron’s voice was husky, tired. It wasn’t an easy voice to listen to this late at night, as Reid paced the kitchen with his phone to his ear: “Hi, Reid.”

“Reid?” Reid teased. “So professional already. That’s Dr. Reid, you know.” Shame hit in a rush, embarrassed at his candour. What if—

But Aaron was laughing, “My apologies, _Doctor_ ,” he said, in that same aching voice, and Reid almost knocked over a mug on the sink, retreating from the kitchen for the sake of his glassware. “Are you okay?”

Reid paused in the living room, eyes skimming the room. Bookshelf, couch, battered TV: “Yes, of course. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Well, you called me. I thought, maybe… something I’d said.”

That hesitancy. The concern, just the same as what was running around in Reid’s brain too, the terror of messing this up before it began. Aaron, no matter how differently he dressed now or how supremely confident he seemed, was as scared as Reid was of this feeling between them.

“No,” Reid murmured, finding the couch and curling up with his knees tucked tight, as though to keep the conversation as enclosed and intimate as possible. Brain still reeling that this was happening, this _could_ happen. “Everything you said was… good. Great. Accurate, anyway. I just… missed you.” The words were leaden and he heard them almost audibly slip into the mouthpiece of the phone, hearing a soft exhale from the other side and the subtle change of inflection in Aaron’s voice as he responded.

“I’ve missed you too.” Aaron’s voice was husky, with exhaustion or emotion or a mixture of the two, Reid couldn’t tell. “I still think about you at the weirdest moments, you never really went away. And walking in and seeing you there… I can’t explain how that made me feel, Spencer. Like finding out something I’d started thinking was some dream was actually real.”

“A dream? Or a nightmare?” Reid curled tighter, thinking of those foggy few years of the drugs and the misery, the ones he barely remembered except for knowing they’d almost killed him. “I hurt you.”

“We hurt each other. You were struggling and I wasn’t what you needed at that time. We were the right people, at the wrong time. I’ve had a lot of time to come to terms with that, I guess. I never really got over it—obviously.” He laughed shortly, a surprising noise. “Obviously, since I spent three years taking Connors down and don’t regret a minute of it.”

“Don’t you?” There was a mark on the wall that Reid was staring at, intensely focused despite all his attention being latched onto the voice humming into his ear.

“No. Not a single minute—beyond what he did to those boys, he also cost me the life I would have had with you. I don’t think life in prison is an unjust sentence for that. Now, he won’t cost anyone else their lives, not ever again.”

Reid couldn’t think beyond one small fraction of that sentence. “The life you would have had?” Mind whirling over the possibilities behind those few words: the intent and the purpose and the multitudes of _what ifs_.

There was silence on the other end, except for Aaron’s breathing. No background noise sounded, no TV or radio. Aaron was doing nothing except this, just as Reid was.

And Reid took a chance: “What life would we have had?” Presumptive, perhaps, but he needed to know like he’d never needed to know anything else.

“Together,” Aaron said finally, roughly. Emotion colouring his voice definitely this time. Reid closed his eyes and savoured it, well beyond being careful now; their paths were set, whatever the outcome. “We would have been together. And you, without what he did… you would have been fantastic. Like you are now, but without the shit you had to face to get here. I’m talking too much, I should stop.”

“No, no,” Reid said hurriedly, opening his eyes as though Aaron could see this sign of fixed interest. “No, this is… good. I want to keep talking, please. If you want. The last case was rough, my brain tends to circle after cases like that.”

“Isn’t every case rough?”

“Yeah.” Yeah, they were. “My brain does a lot of circling. Do you remember when we met?”

Aaron laughed, actually laughed. “Yes, absolutely. You were so skinny and small, getting picked on by those assholes. I wanted to be your friend straight away.”

“So did I. I went home and practised what I was going to say to you, trying to work out which didn’t sound the weirdest. I… was a weird kid.”

Aaron _hmm_ ed audibly, moving on the other end of the line. “Hang on, Hal’s being a pain. She won’t sleep until I go to bed for the night, and her eyes are practically hanging out of her head—I do want to keep talking, I just need to…” He trailed off.

“Are you being sent to bed by your dog?” Reid teased, standing almost unconsciously and making his way to his own bed.

“No. Maybe. Shut up. Hal, _down_.” There was rustling and bumping from the phone, the line crackling. Reid quickly undressed, deciding against putting this conversation aside for the time it would take to find pyjamas and slipping into bed with the cell on speaker and set aside, heart hammering as though this was more intimate than it actually was. “I can’t imagine what you came up with that wouldn’t have sounded weird.”

“Hi, my name is Spencer,” Reid recited slowly, hearing Aaron pause with what sounded like turning his covers back. “Hi, I read books too. Hi, I didn’t mean we couldn’t be friends when I said we weren’t friends. I’ve never had a friend. Have you?”

“Yes,” Aaron cut in suddenly. Reid waited, face flushing hot at this admission of the smaller him’s shyness. “I have. The very best friend I could have ever had.”

If Reid was smiling stupidly, he’d never admit to it. “Want to know which one I was set on?” he asked.

“Of course.” By the sounds of it, Aaron was curled in bed too, just as he was. Like the teenagers they’d never really had the chance to be, talking on the phone for far too long despite the hour.

 “Hi,” he said softly. “My name is Spencer. Want to build Rhosgobel?”

 

**May, 2015**

He made the right choice by shooting Kyle Waters, and that was what his report on the incident would state absolutely, but a small part of him also knew he’d killed the man because one of the boys he’d murdered was the same age as Jack. There had been a long moment, when Reid had gone under Emily’s instructions to examine the bodies and he’d stared down at a mutilated corpse and seen his own son’s face instead of a stranger’s. JJ had been there, of course she had been. Unlike the others on their team, they knew the terror of these kinds of cases more intimately, the image of that body lingering in Reid’s mind for the rest of the night leading up to the confrontation with their unsub, and then after.

On the jet ride home, his ear still stinging from the gouge the bullet had taken from it and the antiseptic applied after, he brooded. Cell phone in hand as he thought of calling Elle, despite the hour. Calling Jack. What would he do? If it was him one day—his own son taken? Could he survive that? He doubted it.

And, again, he saw Jack’s body, and shuddered. JJ was asleep next to him on the couch, the worry smoothed from her face, and he looked at her and fought back a fresh surge of horror at the thought of Henry taken or hurt. The godson she’d gifted him with and he’d showered with all the love he should have upon his own son, if he’d been more of a man and less of his father.

He caved.

**_Elle_ **

**_How’s Jack? S.R. <_ **

Her reply was slow and he was anxious for every second between his text and hers, eyes skimming to his cell no matter how much he tried to distract himself. From across the jet, he could see Aaron glancing up to him occasionally, expression thoughtful. But this wasn’t something he was ready to share yet—Aaron thought he’d seen the worst of him, but he really, really hadn’t. Not yet.

His cell hummed and he almost dropped it in his haste to open the text.

**_> Seriously? It’s past midnight. You couldn’t call during the day and speak to him yourself?_ **

Guiltily, he put his phone aside. She was right, and he was ashamed. Tomorrow. He’d call them… tomorrow.

But, the cell hummed again.

**_> Case with kids, huh?_ **

**_Yes. <_ **

**_> Jack is fine. He’ll always be fine, beyond wishing he had a dad. No one is going to hurt him, Spence. They’d have to get through me. _ **

Relief and sickly guilt battled for prominence in his brain. Contacting Elle was always a minefield of sharp jibes and sharper retorts, as he deserved, he supposed.

**_Can you give him a message from me? S.R. <_ **

**_> you could call tomorrow and tell him yourself_ **

**_> fine, what_ **

**_If he’s ever worried about someone, if someone makes him feel uncomfortable—can you make sure he knows to talk to us? Both of us. You know that predators rely on isolation. <_ **

**_> You’re being paranoid. Don’t fall into that trap, it’ll burn you out. He already knows what to do if he’s worried, I made sure of that. You know, in all these years Ive had the joy of doing this without your help._ **

**_Tell him again. Please. <_ **

She didn’t respond, and it was more than he deserved that she’d ever really responded at all.

 

* * *

 

What followed that was the strangest week of Reid’s year, for sure. The fire and Aaron coming to stay, his meagre belongings and subtle scent pervading the space that no one but Reid had existed within since Elle had walked out on him. It was embarrassing, having Aaron see how Reid lived—the bedding on the couch, the lack of photos, the apartment that was clearly inhabited by one man alone. But, somehow, they adjusted. It was comfortable, except when it was strained.

Strained, like them watching a movie on the couch and Aaron falling asleep midway. Reid sat rigid with one hand on Halcyon and trying to focus on anything but the fact that Aaron’s head was on his shoulder. Exhaustion—it was just exhaustion. From the case and dealing with insurance and getting his own apartment back in one piece and losing all his belongings. That was all, except every part of Reid that was brushing against Aaron was alive with the sensation.

Or strained, like walking out of the shower in nothing but a towel, so used to the apartment being empty, and finding Aaron half-dressed and sleepily waiting for the bathroom, toothbrush in hand and hair ridiculously cow-licked. Strained, like waking up first and tiptoeing around as to not wake his guest, and having Aaron pop up from the couch, smiling upon seeing him and saying in the same half-awake, husky voice, “Morning.”

Strained, like realising he’d forgotten to cancel his date with Anne from fifth and then realising moments later that there was nothing he’d rather do than stay here with Aaron anyway. Not knowing how to say that without being rude, not wanting to add the pressure of his expectations to Aaron right now—not when Aaron was in the position of accepting a favour from Reid, where there could be a suggestion of reimbursement blurring the lines of what Reid wanted to be clear: if this happened, it had to happen _right_. And he didn’t want to go on this date but he’d never been good at disappointing people and Anne had never been anything but kind to him. He owed her at least the dinner he’d promised before telling her his trajectory had changed.

Strained, like all of that leading to this moment: standing half-shaved and shirtless in the bathroom with Aaron watching him with an expression of absolute desire on his face. Clearer and darker than Reid had ever seen it since their reunion. His gaze was raw and it was searing, skimming slowly across Reid’s body in a way that left him superheated, lingering on his waistline and hips. It had been years since Reid had been looked at like _that_ , as though the person couldn’t think of anything but what could be done between them in the bedroom. He had no real idea of how to respond, beyond gripping his razor tight and trying not to break and step closer to the man and that desire, well aware that he was half-hard and getting harder just from the promise behind that steely gaze.

“You missed a spot,” said Aaron, in a voice like they were fucking already, and Reid swallowed. Choked on it, almost, and barely managed to tear his gaze away, glancing at the mirror and his wide, dark eyes.

Aaron stepped closer. And closer. His fingers trailed Reid’s jaw, wiping the shaving cream away before trailing down his throat, settling on his collarbone. There was nothing half about how aroused Reid was now, nothing at all. Their mouths were close, their bodies closer, and the space between them felt electric. Aaron tipped forward. Their noses brushed and Reid jolted as a leg bumped across his front.

“Aaron,” he whispered, because if they didn’t stop this now they’d be in the bedroom before either of them thought to take another breath; as Aaron stepped back, his expression dazed, Reid could see that he wasn’t the only one in the room aroused by this.

His cell went off, breaking the spell. He was late.

Dazed and still aroused, he stumbled around, talking rapidly, not hearing anything he was saying, and it was only when he was dressed and ready and out the door that he thought: why was he still running from this when he’d known from the start that it was where they were heading?

 

* * *

 

They kissed.

Aaron was strange all week, withdrawn and worried, and Reid couldn’t bear it. Thinking that maybe it was because of his stupid inability to tell someone _no_ and do what he really wanted, especially considering he’d ended up bailing on the date halfway anyway—he was an awkward, embarrassing wreck of a man and hated that maybe his actions had hurt Aaron. There had to be a way to fix it, and there was.

A bag of DVDs with everything they’d loved as children contained within. Reid handed it over and watched the wariness fade from Aaron’s eyes, the delight that replaced it. Leaning close out of excitement or unconscious knowledge of what would happen, Aaron looked up and it felt natural that he kiss that mouth offered to him.

And it was everything it had ever been before. This, Reid found, was not something that had changed in the years since they’d been apart. Aaron kissed now as he had then, with a fierce hunger to claim every part of Reid that was offered and a dark promise of more behind even the gentlest of touches. His lips were soft, responsive, his hand coming up automatically to curl around the back of Reid’s head, threading through his hair, and pulling them closer as his mouth slipped open, inviting further exploration. Suddenly, Reid was sliding atop him, the DVDs hitting the ground as Aaron slipped back onto the couch and pulled Reid down so they were bound by two points of contact: their mouths and their hands, each working to touch the other. His knees tight around Aaron’s hips, his back bowed; they kissed until it was less breathless and more deoxygenated and then they broke apart, panting and giddy and still tucked close.

“That was fine,” Reid told Aaron and himself, unable to help his smile and the dizzy thump of his wanting heart. And it was fine, but he wanted more. Wanted it all. “This is better…” He punctuated his words by bringing them together again, matching that hunger and doubling it this time. Hands in hair and bodies pressed close, shifting together; they were both frantic and flushed by this point, Aaron’s body bowing up and into his as the man fought back a moan that Reid felt the shape of in his mouth and that travelled right down to the growing point of heat between his hips. It was good, it was so good, and Reid pictured undressing him right here, sliding down that gorgeous body and tasting every part of it with his mouth until he could take him deep and—

Aaron went rigid beneath him, his heart galloping once and then slamming fast as panic hit. Reid moved faster, sliding off and rambling apologies, his brain shutting off as it fought with his limbic system over whether they were still in freeze, flight, or fuck mode.

And whatever the night could have been come to an abrupt halt, as whatever Aaron had been about to admit or accuse him of—having now seen the abandonment of his family in that dusty room—came to a crashing halt as Reid’s phone rang, his past finally catching up to him.

It was Jack, and he was crying.


	69. Jackson Reid

**June, 2015**

The drive home from the bus station was painful. Seeing Jack sitting on the curb waiting for him, backpack at his side with laptop open, young and alone and so vulnerable… something integral in Reid cracked at that moment as he pulled up and tried to seem angry, when all he was was sad.

“Your mother is very angry,” he said, his voice bland despite the tumultuous emotion he was feeling. “Do you have anything to say?”

Much like many other things in Reid’s life, his attempt at parenting was short-lived and went wrong. Jack, who’d silently thrown his stuff in the back and climbed into the passenger seat, buckling his seatbelt and sinking into himself in an attempt to hide his misery, just shook his head and sniffled. Reid drove in silence, the radio not working and with no way to let Jack obscure his wet breathing.

There had been very few times in Reid’s life that he’d been desperate enough to run away, and every one of them had been terrifying. Aaron’s dad, Connors… whatever had driven Jack here, Reid felt sick to think of it. His knuckles were white around the steering wheel, his back rigid, and they were strangers to each other so he didn’t know how to ask: _did someone hurt you? Is someone going to hurt you?_

Elle had told him over the phone, once she’d finished being nothing but angry, “He’s just being a brat, Spencer. Don’t overthink this—he’s not you.” Which was her way of saying that whatever had driven Jack to flee New Orleans was ‘typical’ child stuff, not the kind of things Reid associated with needing to run from. Reid didn’t understand that. Nothing about his childhood had been typical. But it was Elle’s attempt to stop him from panicking, and he appreciated that, even as he felt anger towards her for her callous dismissal of Jack’s unhappiness.

“How’s your mom?” he probed, wondering if it was Elle Jack was running from. Or Ethan, his grip slipping slightly on the steering wheel as he thought suddenly about the man he hadn’t spoken to beyond a few short sentences for years. Ethan had never forgiven him for leaving them, and Reid doubted he ever would. Not after being left to pick up the pieces of what Reid had broken once more, taking in Elle and Jack when Elle had finally had to admit she was struggling to survive even with Reid’s assistance— ‘handouts’, she called them bitterly—and moved to New Orleans, into _Pantoufles,_ for good. Whatever they were to each other now, he didn’t know and had no right to ask.

Jack shrugged.

“And Ethan?”

Another shrug.

“Is it them you ran away from? Did they do something to upset you?”

“No!” Jack’s voice cracked with anger, head snapping up to aim a familiar glare in his direction. “Don’t say that—you don’t know anything _about_ them!”

Startled, Reid glanced at him and then back at the road. That was defensive, and without any real reason. Reid had absolutely never disparaged Elle, or Ethan, in front of the child they were raising, nor would he ever have thought to do so.

“I don’t want to talk,” Jack mumbled, curling up small and facing out the window, his back to Reid. “Why bother? You’re just going to send me away anyway.”

They drove the rest of the way in silence, the dawn breaking around them.

 

* * *

 

He’d missed Christmas the year before, missed Jack’s birthday too—work, both times—so this was the first time he’d seen Elle for some time. She was struggling. Life was doing to her what Reid had failed to do and beaten her down mercilessly and without respite. Just like all the years before, since she’d left him, she didn’t share this with him, instead hiding her pain away as though he could fail to notice the lines etched deep into her face by time and stress, or the grey around her temples that was years too early to be showing. As though he didn’t notice that her shoulders were slumped where once they’d been straight, her laugh strained and unpractised. She looked old, old and tired, and he wondered if he looked the same. They weren’t children anymore, as they sat silently across from each other at the kitchen table with Jack’s electronics between them like a shield.

“He doesn’t talk,” Elle said, her tone tense. “If something is worrying him, he just bottles it up endlessly. When he had appendicitis, the little _shit_ didn’t even tell me something was wrong until it hurt so much he couldn’t get out of bed.” Reid stared. Jack had had appendicitis? When? “I was at work and Ethan found him there crying but he still hadn’t _told_ us. He bottles until little things become big things and… well, he explodes and fucks off here, for whatever reason.”

It was childish, the soft, “I wonder where he learned that from,” that slipped from Reid’s mouth, but not inaccurate.

It was a sign of how worn-down Elle was that she didn’t rise to the baiting tone, just slumped in her chair, tired eyes locked on the laptop. “What do you want me to say, Spencer?” she asked, her voice cracking painfully. “Do you want me to tell you how hard it’s been? How I never see him because I’m working nights and doubles to make ends meet without imposing on Ethan? That it’s _bullshit_ that our son is a latchkey kid who thinks he needs to cope with everything on his own because his parents are too busy or _distant_ to help him? Jack’s spent his childhood either sitting at home by himself or following Ethan around at that club—do you know there are people around Orleans, drunks, who know more about our son than me and you combined? He learned piano from Ethan, poker from a homeless Navy vet, math from a retired alcoholic, cooking from YouTube videos, do you want me to go on?”

No.

He didn’t say, ‘I’m sorry,’ because he knew it wasn’t enough. It would never, ever be enough. And he didn’t bring up what he’d overheard between Aaron and Jack earlier—that Jack believed that Reid disliked him, that he’d left him because of that—because it felt small and unimportant in the face of Elle’s rightful anger. But he did say, “Jack told Aaron that you’re upset a lot, that you cry when you think he’s not looking.” Her face went rigid, expression freezing in place, but he didn’t stop. Shock was the only way he’d get her to open up about this: “It’s partially why he came here—he didn’t want to stress you out about something that’s bothering him and thought I could help. He’s perceptive.”

“He’s a sneaky little shit,” she grumbled, leaning her face into her hands and making a low sound. “God, Jack…”

“Are you okay?” he asked, despite knowing the answer was a resounding ‘no’.

“No,” she confirmed. “But that’s none of your business, not anymore. Jack is, not me. What does he want?”

Reid pushed aside his worry for Elle, all tangled up in the dull, hurting love he still felt for her—the one that was insistent that he somehow swoop in and fix everything for her, make her smile again—and reached for Jack’s phone. It wasn’t hard to guess the pattern to unlock it, just following the pattern of smeary fingerprints on the glass. “Do you monitor his phone or internet usage?”

Elle gave him a weird look. “I worked sexual crimes for years,” she pointed out, “yes, I monitor his internet usage, as much as I can without physically standing over his shoulder.”

“His messages?” As he spoke, he was booting his own laptop, opening the instant messenger Garcia had installed on there for him to find her waiting for his message. He’d called her earlier and arranged for her help, knowing he was nowhere near technologically apt enough for this task, and neither was Elle.

“No. Not with his friends, and he doesn’t speak to strangers beyond an open forum about some video game he plays, which I _do_ monitor. What are you doing?” Elle had stood, walking around to watch him plug in Jack’s phone as Garcia opened a remote connection, bringing up Jack’s deleted texts messages for them to read and sending a message querying if he was on any social networks that they knew of. “Oh.”

_Oh,_ because now they knew why Jack had run away.

“Life was easier when the bullies stood in front of you,” Reid muttered, closing his eyes for a moment to choke down the anger. “At least then you could break their noses.” Elle made a soft sound that would have been a laugh, if they hadn’t been reading the endless pages of cruelties aimed at their child.

There were months and months of it. Jack had been dealing with this alone for almost a year, without responding once to the hateful messages, or telling anyone he what he was facing. A bevy of insults and threats designed to isolate and terrify a nine-year-old who was too alone and far too brave to know he could ask for help.

**_> saw u walkin home alone Jack-off. ur alone a lot aren’t u? u shuld b careful_ **

**_> hey can u get us a date with ur mom this wkend? Shes the town whore right_ **

**_> my dad says one day ur mom is gonna get shot. do u ever think about that? cops DIE, jack-off, and no one else would have you_ **

**_> no wonder you dont have a dad, id have left you to_ **

**_> ur worthless_ **

**_> weirdo_ **

**_> youll never have friends because no one culd ever like sumone like u_ **

**_> im gonna get you one day_ **

**_> maybe today?_ **

**_> I can see you._ **

**_> you better run_ **

**_> RUN_ **

“I’m going to kill them,” Elle announced with dangerous calm, right as Garcia messaged through details of the account connected to the phone used to send the texts, as well as an offer to skim through his laptop for similar threats. Reid moved aside to let Elle connect it to his network and allowing Garcia access, neither of them surprised when this revealed an instant messenger that Elle hadn’t known about as well as several social media accounts, all rife with the same messages.

Elle was furious that Jack had lied to her, but Reid understood. Beyond the hateful messages from the bully—or, bullies, as Garcia discovered, most of his classmates had at some point or another joined in—Jack’s other messages revealed something far, far harder to fix than systematic harassment: he was lonely. Desperate enough for any kind of contact that he’d even withstand the cruelty he was receiving in return.

Judging from the expression on Elle’s face, she’d realised this too.

They printed everything out silently, Elle murmuring that she’d deal with it when they got back to New Orleans, and sat without speaking as Garcia went through and added new parental controls that connected to Elle’s own electronics, at least for now. The intrusiveness of it sat wrongly with Reid, but he didn’t disagree it was needed, at least until the root cause could be stopped. It was that or removal of Jack’s access to his electronics, which Elle argued strongly against—it would be punishing him for his own victimisation and, “he’s not _you_ , Spencer, he doesn’t want to do nothing but read books.”

And when it was done, they were still silent. What could they talk about? All today had done was shown them had badly they’d failed their son. And they continued sitting in silence until Elle said, in a voice that was thick with forced cheer, “So, Aaron, huh?” and started crying.

There was nothing else Reid could do but stand and go to her, pulling her close and letting her fold against him, like the years between them were nothing and he could still do something for her other than cause her pain. His own eyes burned, hugging her tight and pressing his mouth against her hair as she broke and he broke with her, wishing Jack was small and able to be sheltered completely by them against the world that never welcomed anyone who was different. Her sobs were rough enough that her whole body shook with them, shattering the silence of the room with a kind of pain that was rare and destructive and crushing him with her.

He finally said, “I’m sorry,” despite how useless it was, because he really, really was. For everything he’d done and especially everything he hadn’t. For the years apart and those vicious texts and all his uselessness in the face of hardship.

“Don’t apologise!” she snarled, fingers gripping tight to his shirt and biting down as she clung. “Don’t do that! Just do _better_. Help me!” She looked up at him, eyes swollen but still fierce as she added, “He needs his _dad_ , Spence, he needs you as much as he needs me. And I don’t know how to fix this on my own, I… I already missed that it was happening at all. Some _cop_.” She ducked her head, fighting the tears and the anger and the guilt, and he held her close and let those words linger between them.

Movement caught his eye, Aaron appearing in the doorway and watching them with his eyes wide. Reid watched him back, and he knew.

If he was going to take this step, to move forward, to let Aaron back into his life: first, he had to face those he’d left behind before.

First, he had to be a father.

 

* * *

 

He spoke to Jack before putting him to bed, sitting alone with him in the bedroom while Aaron and Elle washed up from dinner. It wasn’t an easy conversation and it didn’t fix anything, it couldn’t. There was too much distance between them.

“What those people were saying to you, none of that is true,” Reid told the silent boy sitting with his hands folded in his lap and his gaze downcast. “Absolutely none of it. I know it doesn’t help me saying this, because I went through the same things when I was your age, albeit I could escape from it more easily without the intrusiveness of social networking.”

“Mr. Hotch helped you,” Jack said quietly, bare toes curling into the carpet. “He said he did.”

“He did. You know, I didn’t think I’d ever have a friend because I was too weird for people to like. I was wrong about that.”

Now, Jack did look up. “Because he was your friend?”

Reid nodded. “He was, and not just him. I thought I’d always be alone, but I made more friends than I’d ever imagined. Ethan and your mom among them.”

“You were friends with _Mom_?” Jack’s voice was almost amusingly incredulous. “But you guys fight all the time. You don’t even like each other?”

Reid shrugged, wondering what to say and what to leave out and finally settling on: “Ours is a complicated relationship, but know that I love your mother and I love you, and that the only reason you doubt that is because I’ve done a terrible job of showing it. But I’m going to change that, I promise. Here. I want you to take this home with you—and read it. Be very careful with it, because it’s absolutely special to me.” He pulled from the small desk against his wall the notebook he’d written out his own copies of the letters he and Aaron had shared as he’d rewritten them for Aaron, replacing the copies of his own that he’d destroyed over twelve years before. Jack looked confused as he handed it to him, hands hovering over it. The notebook was thick enough that he had to hold it with two hands. “I think you’ll find that a lot of what you’re feeling, I felt too.” He’d spoken to Elle about this, well aware that, after a certain point, Jack’s questions were going to be less ‘did Dad _really_ blow up a school lab’ and more ‘is my dad gay?’, preparing her for that eventuality.

Jack had opened the book, paging through and scanning it, his fingers falling on a single date: _1996._ “Wow, that’s so long ago,” he said, nose scrunching, and Reid frowned. “How will I give it back to you? It might get lost in the mail.”

“Well,” Reid said slowly, “I thought I’d come get it myself, and then you can ask me any questions you have. At the start of your next school year, perhaps, in a few months. And while I’m there, if you’d like, we can organise to speak to your classmates about the consequences of cruelty, from a real FBI agent.” He paused, savouring the new and strange feeling of warmth at the hopeful stare Jack was pinning him with, before adding: “With a _gun_.”

No, it wasn’t enough to heal all that was broken between them, not yet.

But it was a start.

 

* * *

 

That month ended with a letter, one that Reid kept to himself for now because he didn’t quite know yet what to do with it. Summer was approaching and his focus was torn between work and the growing thing between him and Aaron, knowing that something inevitable was approaching. Elle kept in contact with him about Jack, the summer break proving to be a dearly needed break for the boy as Garcia’s safeguards kept anyone they didn’t want from contacting him online and, as Elle informed Reid, Ethan and the people from his club who cared about Jack kept anyone from accosting him to or from any of his destinations.

When he rung Jack to ask him about it, unsure of how to approach it, the boy refused to talk about it. “You gotta answer properly,” he said. “Just like you used to with Aaron. You said it’s complicated and I don’t understand complicated things well unless they’re written down.”

But, try as he might, this was the one letter Reid didn’t know how to write, not yet.

 

> _Dear Dad,_
> 
> _I’ve been reading your letters and stuff in the notebook you gave me. It’s so weird. I don’t think I’ve ever EVER thought of you as someone like me before. That sounds dumb because of course you were a kid once but to me you’ve always been my dad. But you were. You sound just like me, but way smarter._
> 
> _I skipped to the end and Im confused. You and Aaron were BEST FRIENDS and best friends don’t ever leave each other, even if there was kissing stuff going on making things different. I don’t understand that but I showed Ethan (Im sorry if you didn’t want me to but he was home and I didn’t really understand) and he says that when you love someone a lot its not really that different from being best friends. He also said that you loved aaron a lot and always have and that it was different to how you felt about mom and that I should ask you because he didn’t want to spend his day off talking about how sappy you are. Then he tried to talk about being gay or bi which I didn’t care about because Ive seen lots of boys with boys or girls with girls at the Slipper its not that interesting._
> 
> _I just want to know what happened. Why did you stop talking to Aaron? When you love someone SO much you shouldn’t ever stop talking to them and I guess Im writing this because Im angry. You loved him and you left._
> 
> _You say you love me too but you left me as well. And mom and ethan and everyone. And no one will tell me what happened, they just keep saying that Im not old enough to know. Which I know you wont say because in your letters you said to Aaron that you didn’t agree with not asking questions if the answers are important._
> 
> _Why did you leave?_
> 
> _Love, your son Jack_


	70. Aaron Hotchner

He woke this morning in Aaron’s arms, curled up in a nest of blankets on the living room floor that was cosy with the warmth of their shared bodies. Aaron was pressed close, one arm wrapped loosely over Reid’s side in a line of almost-sweaty heat, the other thrown back under his head. Their legs were tangled, Aaron pressed so tight to his back that there was a semi-hard reminder of their activities from the night before tucked between Reid’s thighs. Reid shifted, a soft noise escaping from the sudden shock-feeling sensation of his body reminding him he’d had sex recently and in a fashion he hadn’t for some years. A deep-seated ache that worked its way out of him, but pleasurably so.

“Morning,” Aaron hummed against the back of his neck, kissing gently and following with a nip, his hips swaying sleepily. “Missed this.”

Reid just curled tighter, arching his back into that heat and pressure as his own body responded with hunger. A tantalising taste of being twenty again. On the TV, the DVD menu of _Return of the King_ stood frozen, waiting to be played once more. “I refuse to get up,” he announced, deciding to just stay here on the living room floor forever.

Aaron laughed, his hand sneaking over Reid’s hip to curl around him and finish what his dick hadn’t: “Seems to me you’re already up,” he teased, and Reid turned to scowl the best he could at him, which had the unfortunate side-effect of meaning Aaron could reach his mouth to kiss him.

All in all, it was the best kind of way to wake up, and he didn’t regret a moment of it.

It wasn’t a mistake.

Neither was what followed. Time passed for them all. Summer flew by quickly; Aaron had moved out but that didn’t stop them from spending as much time as possible together when they weren’t at work. They’d never really lived together as a couple and neither was willing to try it while they were so anxious and new about what they were doing, beginning their relationship again. Not when being at work also meant being around each other, with neither willing to dance with co-dependency again.

But, summer always ended. Reid regarded this with a worrying amount of superstition, sure that it was leading to some terrible end for them all and unsure that they could face losing each other when they’d only just found their way once more. He clung, fiercely, to his boy from Rhosgobel because he knew that this time was it for sure—he didn’t want to live happily ever after with Aaron, but he desperately wanted a chance to just live happily.

Surely enough, the week before summer ended, Aaron was waiting by his car as he finished work. “I need to ask you something,” he asked, and every part of Reid tensed, from his fingers wrapped around his shoulder bag to his toes inside his shoes, panic biting deep and refusing to let him go.

“Uhuh,” he asked warily, hiding that he was sweating from panic by shuffling past and unlocking his car, dropping his stuff in and using the car door to hide the fact that he was wiping his hands on his trousers. “Sure, fine. I mean, I’m here, listening. Whatever.”

“Spencer.” Aaron’s voice was a laugh and, when Reid looked at him, he was smiling. “Calm down. It’s not serious.”

“We’re not breaking up?” Reid squeaked, thirty-four years old and going on thirteen.

“No, god. No.” Aaron leaned on the car door, grinning in a way that was seriously off-putting considering he was still wearing his ‘Hotch’ suit. “After I waited twenty-three years to reach this moment? Absolutely not. It’s about next week.”

Next week, Reid remembered with a thrill: his trip to New Orleans. Emily had been surprisingly accommodating, probably because the team had never quite gotten over what he’d done to his family in the first place and they were nothing if not meddling.

“I was thinking,” Aaron continued, eyes fixed in an innocently sweet smile that made Reid’s internal organs feel like they were made of something warm and melty, an intensely uncomfortable experience, “maybe you shouldn’t fly up there.”

The tension was back. “I’m going,” Reid said resolutely, some part of himself already resigning himself to his first fight with Aaron for this time around, if he dug his heels in on this. If he missed this chance, Elle would never give him another one. She’d likely burn Jack’s birth certificate and any proof that Reid had fathered him along with it. “I have to go—”

“I know, I know,” Aaron said hurriedly, straightening. “It’s just, I might have a few days off too. That, ah, I coincidentally was allowed, and I thought we could… well, our first and only road trip wasn’t exactly fun. How about we try again? Together.”

There was really only one answer to that.

“Yes,” Reid said, with surety.

 

* * *

 

If he’d ever doubted anything ever, it wasn’t the moment he stood in front of Jack’s school—they’d discussed just the singular class but the principal had leapt at the opportunity to have a ‘learning’ moment for everyone and Reid, for some reason, had agreed—and talked about the danger of isolating others. With Aaron at his side in his suit and firm glare, there wasn’t a peep from any of the students as they all listened with intent focus to—censored—descriptions of the damage loneliness could cause.

There was a single hiccup and, in the end, it wasn’t really a hiccup at all.

A child put his hand up, smiling angelically as he called out loud enough for all to hear, “Are you gay?” with a sharp look at Jack. “I saw you hugging before class. That’s pretty gay.”

A teacher moved to cut the kid off, Reid thrown off his train of thought—he wasn’t ashamed, but there was being ashamed and there was standing in front of his child’s school having introduced himself as Jack’s father and giving them more rope to hang Jack with.

“That’s irrelevant to the discussion at hand,” Aaron said firmly, his voice oozing with ‘I’m disappointed in you’. “And a deliberate attempt at acting provocative—do you know what that means?” The teacher had stopped, waiting to see what Aaron was going to say as Reid stood frozen and the kid shook his head. “It means saying or doing things in order to create a reaction, whether that’s upsetting someone or making them mad. You don’t need to be cruel to be provocative, you can just ask a question that’s entirely innocent—such as that one—but at a time that’s inappropriate, like now. That’s an example of the type of behaviour that can become bullying or harassment, and something for you to think on for the future before you speak.”

The kid sunk back, flushing bright red and angry, but it was another voice that piped up. “I don’t care that he asked,” Jack said, wiggling out from the group and dodging a teacher to stride bravely up to Reid’s side. “You can answer it, I don’t care if everyone knows that you’re together. It’s not bad and they’re shit if they think it is.”

That was about the end of the assembly, as the teachers quickly moved to quell the shrieks of _oooooh_ at the swear word Jack had let slip, the room immediately devolving into middle schoolers yelling, but Reid didn’t give a damn because Jack had taken his hand and was hanging on tight, staring the boy who’d spoken down without flinching.

“I’m proud of you, Jack,” Reid murmured, watching Jack’s shoulders straighten at the words. “Always.”

In his hand, Jack’s grip tightened.

 

* * *

 

Ethan’s hands moved fluently over the piano keys, speaking a language of music that Reid had never been able to speak himself, but had always appreciated. In the kitchen, Aaron was helping Elle as Jack chattered with endless, fierce excitement about how well the assembly had gone and how cool everyone thought it was that his dad was a real FBI agent who’d _killed_ people, ‘hundreds of them!’

The music slowed, Ethan pausing. Reid tensed, unsure what happened next. This was their first time alone in almost six years, and he didn’t know the look on Ethan’s face when he slid around on the seat and studied him intently.

“You coming for Christmas?” was all he asked though, tapping on a key in a repetitive, tinny tune.

Reid hesitated. “I’m going to try,” he offered, seeing Ethan’s features harden. “Eth, I mean it. I… let things slip. Work allowing, I’m going to be here as close to Christmas Day as I can be.” He paused; it wasn’t his business and he doubted Ethan would ever trust him enough to speak frankly to him, but he tried anyway: “Is Elle okay?”

As he’d suspected, his answer was a bland stare that said nothing.

Reid looked at his hands, then around at the house Ethan had built for himself from the rubble of his childhood home. At the photos on the wall, an array of school photos, one for every year of Jack’s school life. Snapshots of Elle, snapshots of Ethan. Some of them together. Ethan with a smaller Jack on his shoulder, carnival balloons in hand and matching smiles. Fiona and Josh sitting together in another photo, yet another one of Gram. Even one of Specky, who Spencer had noted the lack of and hadn’t had the heart to ask about, preferring to pretend that the beloved cat was outside in his favourite bush. This was a family home, with a family within.

“I always said they should have been your family,” he admitted honestly, turning to Ethan who rolled his eyes in response. “I’m serious. You’ve done more for them than I ever have.”

“Fi and Josh spend Christmas with us now,” Ethan said finally, his voice quiet. “It’s a pretty new thing, but I’m hopeful it will keep up. This is despite all the things I’ve done to them, the ways I’ve betrayed them—and there’s been plenty.” Reid waited, knowing there was a point to this, only moving when Ethan stood and gestured for him to follow him, outside and down the porch steps and across the overgrown lawn to the secondary suite they’d added at the back of the yard. Entering the self-contained apartment was like stepping back in time, Reid shivering once as he remembered his first visit to _Pantoufles._ But, it wasn’t cold and drafty in there anymore; instead, the room was painted warmly and well-lived in, instruments scattered around the piles of clothes and a familiar keyboard taking up most of the space in the bed. Ethan just pointed, past the mess to his dresser, that was an unfamiliar clutter of more photos. “I gotta ask, Spence, do you think I should tell her that, because of all I’ve done to her, she should stop considering me family?”

“I don’t…” Reid began, but stopped. The photos he was looking at… he was there. Not just him and Ethan from college, but also their wedding photo. A rare picture of him and Elle holding Jack, hidden among the other frames—mostly Specky. And, beside the frame holding their wedding photo, a ribbon held a familiar ring. “Why do you have that?” Reid asked, reaching out and tracing the circle of her wedding ring.

“I don’t,” Ethan replied shortly. “Those are Elle’s just as much as they’re mine. We share this room, and the one in the main house is hers alone. By my preference, I should add, before you question us. I just thought you should see that you’re not and have never been forgotten here. Yeah, sure, they’re my family—but that doesn’t stop them from being yours too, or you from being mine. No matter how much of a shit you’ve been.”

Reid turned, his heart thumping somewhere around his throat region, which was tightening with emotion. If asked, however, he’d blame the dust in here. “You’re happy, aren’t you,” he realised, and it wasn’t a question.

Ethan nodded. “Yeah,” he said gruffly, scruffing his hair up with one awkward hand. “Yeah, I am. Are you?”

Over his shoulder, through the open door, Reid could see Jack and Aaron coming out onto the porch to look for them. “Absolutely,” Reid said, his heart returning to its proper place in his chest.

Ethan had looked too, standing aside to let Reid past. “Well, that’s what’s different, isn’t it?” he said absently, studying Aaron. Reid looked at him, puzzled. “Every other time you guys have tried this thing you’ve got going on, you haven’t been happy. Maybe you’ll actually manage to keep him this time. Hey, Jack! Get inside—let’s show your dad what I’ve taught you to do.”

Before Reid could comment on what he’d said, he was gone, jogging across the lawn. And there wasn’t another chance, not really—what Ethan had turned out to have taught Jack to do, was duet _The Breaking of the Fellowship_ on the piano with him, stunning both Aaron and Reid with the familiar song in a completely new format, Jack grinning proudly even as he missed note after note, just glad to have this moment to shine. With Aaron perched next to him on the arm of the chair, their hands twined together, and Elle leaning on the door watching her boys play piano together with a fierce kind of love burning on her face… Reid knew he’d told the truth. He was happy.

He thought that maybe he could keep it that way now.

 

* * *

 

Aaron dozed against the window during the final leg of the drive home. Reid waited until he was asleep and adjusted their course, all the while chasing around his goodbyes with Jack over and over and over again in his mind. He’d sat him down, words fumbling in his mouth and drying his throat, as he’d struggled to answer the question Jack had posed to him in that damning letter. But Jack had refused to listen, once again reiterating that he had to _write_ his response: “It’s gotta be a proper answer, Dad. It’s _important_.” Whatever he’d taken from the book of letters that sat on the backseat now, it had firmly set in his mind that things of importance had to be written in such a way that they could be studied at length. Reid was worried that whatever he did manage to write would be underwhelming or, more likely, far too confronting for Jack to face.

He'd asked Elle what to say. All she’d said was, “Try the truth,” with her gaze discerning. “He’s young, Spence, but it’s affected all our lives. And he has so many people around him to help him understand. Just, for god’s sake, warn me first so he doesn’t spring it on me while I’m driving or something.”

But his recursive thoughts were cut off by the darkened shadows of a familiar road coming up ahead. Gravel crunched as Reid turned into it, pulling up by a chain-locked fence that hadn’t been there before. “Hmm,” he said, idling the car. It was past midnight, the only light their headlights, and Aaron startled awake with a grunt and peered around at the deserted surroundings, wiping his chin with his sleeve.

“Where are we?” he asked sleepily. “Spence?”

But Reid was out the car, leaving Aaron behind as he darted up to what he’d noticed—the chain on the fence wasn’t locked, just looped through. With Aaron hanging out of the car and staring at him, bemused, Reid tugged the chain loose and shoved the gate open with a loud sweep of gravel, glancing around nervously. He wasn’t much of a lawbreaker, never really had been, and even this small act of trespass had his blood up. Back to the car and Aaron was staring blankly at him.

“Do I have to arrest you?” he asked, with a dazed kind of ‘I don’t know what’s happening’ smile which vanished as Reid killed the lights and drove up and into the fenced in area, stopping only to close the gate behind them before returning to the car where, now, Aaron sat rigidly. “I’m actually going to have to arrest you, you’ve lost it. Where are… we…”

He’d trailed off, because Reid had kept driving up the unsealed road until they’d come up on the top of the slope, no longer as thickly wooded as it once had been and with half the fence gone, but still recognisably the quarry.

“I don’t think it’s going to be here anymore,” Reid admitted, switching the car to off and staring out at the brightly lit quarry, a full moon glaring down at them and turning everything stark with the harshest of white lights. “But every other time we’ve started something, it’s begun at Rhosgobel. I didn’t think we should change that.”

Aaron didn’t answer, just climbed from the car and walked that familiar path as though in a daze, Reid racing to catch up with him. Fingers catching each other’s, with the still-warm autumn night pressing in on them, they went where they had so many times before, finding that time had taken more from them than their youth.

The full moon only made the bulldozed land so much harsher, Aaron walking to where Reid knew Rhosgobel had once stood and looking down into the quarry below. Reid hovered behind, approaching with a strange grief and disappointment building. Somehow, he’d still… hoped. Thought that the magic of this place would keep it safe, even though twenty years had passed. Gravel and splintered wood crunched under his shoes as he took his place by Aaron’s side, just as he had before Rhosgobel had existed, and just as now when it existed no longer.

“I’m sorry,” said Reid, truly grieved that they’d discovered this. “Maybe I should have just left it as it was… never come back here, so we never knew.”

But Aaron, when Reid looked at him, was smiling. “Nah,” he said, tipping his head to the sky and closing his eyes as though he was imagining facing down a phantom storm with no real power to touch them now. But the night was silent. The storm they’d faced as children, and again as young adults, was over, leaving only calm. “It’s better this way. Rhosgobel stopped being a place the night Sean took me away—since then, it’s an idea. Remember how we used to fight, how we’d get so mad at each other for romanticising it? Well, we were wrong. We _should_ have romanticised it. This place might be a shitty old quarry on the edge of a town that looked away when a kid was being hurt, but Rhosgobel is _us_. It’s safety and friendship and a place we can absolutely always return to, together. It’s here and it’s your living room in that crappy old apartment that one Christmas and it’s the letters we wrote and the stories we told. It’s anywhere we choose it to be.” He turned and faced the shell-shocked Reid, who’d apparently been incorrectly assuming that he was the whimsical one in this relationship. “I’m happy this old place is gone, because now we have no excuse but to make somewhere new—somewhere my dad and Ross Connors has never touched. Somewhere just for us.” And he kissed him, bringing his mouth to Reid’s and silencing the speech with everything they were feeling in that moment, culminated in their arms around each other and the sway of their bodies.

“I love you,” Reid told him, because nothing, absolutely _nothing,_ he could say would top the kind of proclamation Aaron had just declared.

“I love you too,” Aaron replied, eyes glittering. “But since we’re already breaking laws, I want to break one more—I’m chucking a rock in that quarry one last time, that sign over there be damned.”

Laughing, Reid followed him to the crumbly edge, twitching back from the unfenced drop a little as Aaron fearlessly scooped up a rock and hurled it over—like children again, they counted the drop out loud until the sound of the splash, laughing helplessly even though nothing was funny.

“Your shot,” breathed Aaron, a grin wide on his face that didn’t seem so tired anymore. Reid looked about for a rock, seeing a likely one nearby and going for it.

But, when he crouched for it, he saw something much better.

“What are you doing?” Aaron asked, following him over and turning the flashlight on his cell on so they could see more clearly as Reid dug in the chalky dirt, his fingers white and nails grimy. “Is that… whoa…” And he helped, digging just as eagerly until they were both chalk-white from their hands to their clothes, and holding a splintered piece of board between them.

It was their sign from Rhosgobel. Still in, mostly, one piece, once they’d cleaned the dust from it.

Reid didn’t say it, because he wasn’t as brave with his fantasies as Aaron was, but he took it as a sign that Aaron was absolutely right. The sign, when they left that place for the final time, went with them. Just like Rhosgobel did.

And as they got back in the car, Reid murmured, “We did it, Aaron,” seeing Aaron glance at him curiously, his sign across their lap. He clarified, “We finished our story. The one of Halcyon and Mine.”

Aaron looked curiously, peering around as though expecting Reid to magic up paper and their story written out neatly. But he didn’t; Jack wasn’t completely right. Not everything important had to be written down. Aaron understood that, eventually, looking back out the window to what had been their fort and saying, “Oh. So we did.”

For Aaron and Spencer, they knew, this was the part where they just lived happily.

Or, almost.


	71. Rhosgobel

The afternoon they put the final touches on Rhosgobel was a stormy one, the wind whipping the trees up around them into a frenzy. Aaron was paint-splattered and dirt-plastered as Spencer handed him the spare hammer and they nailed the repainted sign from the original fort into place of pride atop the door. Unlike the old Rhosgobel, this one was a thing of awkward beauty, made of straight, clean planks of treated pine with a neatly hinged door and complete with a flexi-glass window. It looked down onto the slopes of the distant river, sheltered from the eyes of the main house behind by the wild greenery of Gram’s garden. One wall was painted by Spencer’s clumsy hand, another by the much neater Aaron. Yet another was a terrible mess of Ethan’s handiwork, as he consistently grew bored with one colour and switched mid-plank to another.

With one last bang of the hammers, the wind howling overhead and Aaron glancing up warily into the storm-grey sky overhead, it was done.

“What do you think, boys?” Spencer asked, wiping sweat from his head and turning to where Jack and Henry were examining the fort with world-weary gazes, as though they were investors pricing a particularly valuable piece of land. “Will it do?”

“Fuck yeah it will,” Jack responded, earning a scowl from Spencer and a twitch of his head toward Elle who was coming towards them. “I mean, yeah! She looks great! Wait, where’s the thing—” They raced off for whatever they needed, almost tripping each other in their haste.

“Would you look at that, you idiots actually made it,” Elle commented, Ethan popping up from behind the fort with a loud, “Hey, _I_ made it—they just did what I told them to.”

“Mm,” Elle responded, turning her back Ethan as though dismissing him, offering a wink that only Spencer could see at Ethan’s glum, “Aw.” “Hey, Spence, can you help me bring the lawn chairs into the shed before this hits? Are you sure the fort will be fine?”

“She’s steady as a horse,” Ethan declared, slapping the side and popping the flexi-glass window out. “Oops. I can fix that.”

Laughing, Spencer followed Elle out away from the shelter of the trees, only pausing to pat the fretful looking Halcyon. “I’ve been thinking,” Elle murmured, opening the shed door for him to cart his stack of chairs through. He looked at her nervously, never sure he trusted _that_. “Maybe it’s time we got that divorce we keep putting off, made it real.”

“What? Why?” For a moment, his heart twisted a little in his chest, thinking he’d done something awful. But she touched his arm, looking to the fort where Aaron and Ethan were arguing over the correct way to install a faux-window. Nothing else needed to be said.

Moving away from the past, toward their future.

“Yeah,” he agreed, slipping his arm around her and brushing his mouth against her hair, one last kiss as her husband. “Maybe it’s time.”

By the time they got back to the fort, the boys were back, both holding one side of a sheet of paper and declaring that everyone must listen to them. “We’ve got something to say,” Jack said firmly.

“Yeah, a speech,” added Henry. “Aaron helped.”

They all looked at Aaron, who continued studying the sky innocently.

And the boys read out in unison, Jack’s eyes on Spencer and Henry’s on the paper, “And this place is forever known as Rhosgobel and the armies of Fear won’t come here. On this date of August 2016, we call this place _ours_ forevermore, which means even more than forever.”

“They added the last bit,” Aaron murmured, but Spencer didn’t care. It was perfect anyway.

As one last storm hurtled down towards them, they were a family and they faced it fearlessly and without looking back.

 

**The End.**


	72. Dear Jack

_I’m sorry it took me so long to write you this letter. Since the day you asked me what happened, I’ve struggled to find the words to explain. I’ve stared for so long at so many blank white sheets of paper, wishing I knew how to even begin answering you. You see, the answer to that question isn’t easy. There’s nothing easy or simple about people, not even the people you think you know the best. We’re complicated and complex and often very selfish. We make bad choices and contradict ourselves. We are hurt and we, in turn, hurt those around us. That’s life. It can be terrible._

_But it can also be wonderful._

_Someone once asked me how I would begin my story, if I was to tell someone the story of my life. I was always adamant that I wouldn’t tell it at all. I didn’t think anyone needed to know it. I didn’t think anyone would care._

_I was wrong._

_It feels right that it is in the form of a letter, written to someone I love. This is my story. It’s why I did what I did; it’s why I made the choices I made. It’s not a kind letter, there are going to be things in here that change the way you think of me and there are going to be things in here that frighten you. You’re not alone._

_When you read this, I’ll be by your side and your mother will be there with me. You’ll never be alone._

_It begins in a lonely quarry where a lonely boy made a friend. Or maybe it begins a little later._

_I think I know how I’ll begin it now._

_Dear Jack,_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to Blythechild, without whom this would never have been finished.
> 
> Thank you, love, for making a terrible, terrible experience just that little bit better.


End file.
